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LIBRARY 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


BOOKS  BY 
ANNIE  PAYSON   CALL 


Power  Through  Repose 
As  A  Matter  op  Course 
The  Freedom  of  Life 
Every  Day  Living 

Nerves  and  Common  Sense 
How  TO  Live  Quietly 


NERVES 


AND 


COMMON    SENSE 

BY 

ANNIE  PAYSON  CALL 

Author  of  " Power  Through  Repose,"  ''As  a  Matter  of 
Course,"  "  The  Freedom  of  Life,"  etc. 

NEW  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION 


NON'REFEPCr 


BQV^lYAD-aHS 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY/ 

1916 


Copyright,  igog,  igis. 

By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company. 

Copyright,  igo8,  igog, 

By  The  Curtis  Publishing  Company. 


All  rights  reserved. 


Fifth  Printing, 

(313 


B.  J.  Parkhii-l  &  Co.,  BoBTos,  U.S.A. 


MANY  of  these  articles  first  ap- 
peared in  "The  Ladies'  Home 
Journal,"  and  I  am  glad  to  take 
this  opportunity  of  thanking  Mr.  Edward 
Bok  —  the  editor  —  for  his  very  helpful 
and  suggestive  titles. 

ANNIE   PAYSON  CALL. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

I.   Habit  and  Nervous  Strain      .     .  1 

II.   How  Women  can  Keep  from  being 

Nervous 6 

III.   "You   HAVE   NO   Idea   how   I   am 

Rushed"         27 

rV.   "Why  does  Mrs.   Smith   Get  on 

MY  Nerves.^" 44 

V.   The  Trying  Member  of  the  Fam- 
ily       61 

VI.   Irritable  Husbands 79 

VII.   Quiet  vs.  Chronic  Excitement     .  97 

VIII.   The  Tired  Emphasis 110 

IX.  How  to  be  III  and  Get  Well    .  118 
X.   Is   Physical   Culture   Good   for 

Girls.? 128 

XI.   Working  Restfully 145 

XII.   Imaginary  Vacations 160 

XIII.   The  Woman  at  the  Next  Desk  169 

vii 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

XIV.  Telephones  and  Telephoning  177 

XV.  Don't  Talk 185 

XVI.   "Why    Fuss    so    much    about 

WHAT  I  Eat?"       ....  194 

XVII.  Take  Care  of  your  Stomach  211 

XVIII.  About  Faces 220 

XIX.  About  Voices      ......  227 

XX.  About  Frights 237 

XXI.   Contrariness 242 

XXII.  How  TO  Sew  Easily   ....  253 

XXIII.  Do  NOT  Hurry 261 

XXIV.  The  Care  of  an  Invalid    .     .  269 
XXV.  The  Habit  of  Illness     .     .     .  277 

XXVI.   What  Is  It  that  Makes  Me  so 

Nervous? 293 

XXVII.  Positive  and  Negative  Effort  314 

XXVIII.  Human  Dust       333 

XXIX.  Plain      Every-day      Common 

Sense 353 

XXX.  A  Summing  Up 373 


•••'1 


NERVES    AND   COMMON 
SENSE 

Chapter  I 
Habit  and  Nervous  Strain 

PEOPLE  form  habits  which  cause 
nervous  strain.  When  these  habits 
have  fixed  themselves  for  long 
enough  upon  their  victims,  the  nerves 
give  way  and  severe  depression  or  some 
other  form  of  nervous  prostration  is  the 
result.  If  such  an  illness  turns  the  atten- 
tion to  its  cause,  and  so  starts  the  sufferer 
toward  a  radical  change  from  habits 
which  cause  nervous  strain  to  habits 
which  bring  nervous  strength,  then  the 
illness  can  be  the  beginning  of  better  and 
permanent  health.  If,  however,  there 
simply  is  an  enforced  rest,  without  any 
intelligent  understanding  of  the  trouble, 
11 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

the  invalid  gets  ''well"  only  to  drag  out 
a  miserable  existence  or  to  get  very  ill 
again. 

Although  any  nervous  suffering  is  worth 
while  if  it  is  the  means  of  teaching  us  how 
to  avoid  nervous  strain,  it  certainly  is  far 
preferable  to  avoid  the  strain  without  the 
extreme  pain  of  a  nervous  breakdown. 

To  point  out  many  of  these  pernicious 
habits  and  to  suggest  a  practical  remedy 
for  each  and  all  of  them  is  the  aim  of  this 
book,  and  for  that  reason  common  ex- 
amples in  various  phases  of  every-day 
life  are  used  as  illustrations. 

When  there  is  no  organic  trouble  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  dejects  of  character, 
inherited  or  acquired,  are  at  the  root  of  all 
nervous  illness.  If  this  can  once  be 
generally  recognized  and  acknowledged, 
especially  by  the  sufferers  themselves,  we 
are  in  a  fair  way  toward  eliminating  such 
illness  entirely. 


HABIT  AND  NERVOUS  STRAIN 

The  trouble  is  people  suffer  from 
mortification  and  an  unwillingness  to 
look  their  bad  habits  in  the  face.  They 
have  not  learned  that  humiliation  can  be 
wholesome,  sound,  and  healthy,  and  so 
they  keep  themselves  in  a  mess  of  a  fog 
because  they  will  not  face  the  shame 
necessary  to  get  out  of  it.  They  would 
rather  be  ill  and  suffering,  and  believe 
themselves  to  have  strong  characters  than 
to  look  the  weakness  of  their  characters 
in  the  face,  own  up  to  them  like  men, 
and  come  out  into  open  fresh  air  with 
healthy  nerves  which  will  gain  in  strength 
as  they  live. 

Any  intelligent  man  or  woman  who 
thinks  a  bit  for  himself  can  see  the 
stupidity  of  this  mistaken  choice  at  a 
glance,  and  ^  seeing  it  will  act  against 
it  and  thus  do  so  much  toward  bring- 
ing light  to  all  nervously  prostrated 
humanity.  - 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

We  can  talk  about  faith  cure,  Christian 
Science,  mind  cure,  hypnotism,  psycho- 
therapeutics, or  any  other  forms  of  nerve 
cure  which  at  the  very  best  can  only  give 
the  man  a  gentle  shunt  toward  the  middle 
of  the  stream  of  life.  Once  assured  of 
the  truth,  the  man  must  hold  himself 
in  the  clean  wholesomeness  of  it  by  ac- 
tively working  for  his  own  strength  of 
character  from  his  own  initiative.  There 
can  be  no  other  permanent  cure. 

I  say  that  strength  of  character  must 
grow  from  our  own  initiative,  and  I 
should  add  that  it  must  be  from  our  own 
initiative  that  we  come  to  recognize  and 
actively  believe  that  we  are  dependent 
upon  a  power  not  our  own  and  our  real 
strength  comes  from  ceasing  to  be  an 
obstruction  to  that  power.  The  work  of 
not  interfering  with  our  best  health,  moral 
and  physical,  means  hard  fighting  and 
steady,    never-ending   vigilance.      But   it 

4 


HABIT  AND   NERVOUS   STRAIN 

pays  —  it  more  than  pays !  And,  it 
seems  to  me,  this  prevailing  trouble  of 
nervous  strain  which  is  so  much  \\dth  us 
now  can  be  the  means  of  guiding  all  men 
and  women  toward  more  solid  health 
than  has  ever  been  known  before.  But 
we  must  work  for  it!  We  must  give  up 
expecting  to  be  cured. 


Chapter  II 

How  Women  can  keep  from 

being  Nervous  ^ 

MANY  people  suffer  unnecessarily 
from  "nerves"  just  for  the 
want  of  a  little  knowledge  of 
how  to  adjust  themselves  in  order  that 
the  nerves  may  get  well.  As  an  example, 
I  have  in  mind  a  little  woman  who  had 
been  ill  for  eight  years  —  eight  of  what 
might  have  been  the  best  years  of  her 
life  —  all  because  neither  she  nor  her 
family  knew  the  straight  road  toward 
getting  well.  Now  that  she  has  found 
the  path  she  has  gained  health  wonder- 
fully in  six  months,  and  promises  to  be 
better  than  ever  before  in  her  life. 

Let  me  tell  you  how  she  became  ill  and 
then  I  can  explain  her  process  of  getting 

6 


TO  KEEP  PROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

well  again.  One  night  she  was  overtired 
and  could  not  get  to  sleep,  and  became 
very  much  annoyed  at  various  noises  that 
were  about  the  house.  Just  after  she 
had  succeeded  in  stopping  one  noise  she 
would  go  back  to  bed  and  hear  several 
others.  Finally,  she  was  so  worked  up 
and  nervously  strained  over  the  noises 
that  her  hearing  became  exaggerated, 
and  she  was  troubled  by  noises  that  other 
people  would  not  have  even  heard;  so 
she  managed  to  keep  herself  awake  all 
night. 

The  next  day  the  strain  of  the  over- 
fatigue was,  of  course,  very  much  in- 
creased, not  only  by  the  wakeful  night, 
but  also  by  the  annoyance  which  had 
kept  her  awake.  The  family  were  dis- 
tressed that  she  should  not  have  slept 
all  night;  talked  a  great  deal  about  it, 
and  called  in  the  doctor. 

The  woman's  strained  nerves  were  on 

7 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

edge  all  day,  so  that  her  feelings  were 
easily  hurt,  and  her  brothers  and  sisters 
became,  as  they  thought,  justly  impatient 
at  what  they  considered  her  silly  babyish- 
ness.  This,  of  course,  roused  her  to  more 
strain.  The  overcare  and  the  feeble, 
unintelligent  sympathy  that  she  had  from 
some  members  of  her  family  kept  her 
weak  and  self-centered,  and  the  ignorant, 
selfish  impatience  with  which  the  others 
treated  her  increased  her  nervous  strain. 
After  this  there  followed  various  other 
worries  and  a  personal  sense  of  annoyance 
—  all  of  which  made  her  more  nervous. 
Then  —  the  stomach  and  brain  are  so 
closely  associated  —  her  digestion  began 
to  cause  her  discomfort:  a  lump  in  her 
stomach,  her  food  ''would  not  digest," 
and  various  other  symptoms,  all  of  which 
mean  strained  and  overwrought  nerves, 
although  they  are  more  often  attributed 
merely   to   a   disordered   stomach.      She 

8 


TO   KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

worried  as  to  what  she  had  better  eat  and 
what  she  had  better  not  eat.  If  her 
stomach  was  tired  and  some  simple  food 
disagreed  with  her  all  the  discomfort  was 
attributed  to  the  food,  instead  of  to  the 
real  cause,  —  a  tired  stomach,  —  and  the 
cause  back  of  that,  —  strained  nerves. 
The  consequence  was  that  one  kind  of 
wholesome  food  after  another  was  cut 
off  as  being  impossible  for  her  to  eat. 
Anything  that  this  poor  little  invalid  did 
not  like  about  circumstances  or  people 
she  felt  ugly  and  cried  over.  Finally, 
the  entire  family  were  centered  about  her 
illness,  either  in  overcare  or  annoyance. 

You  see,  she  kept  constantly  repeating 
her  brain  impression  of  overfatigue :  first 
annoyance  because  she  stayed  awake; 
then  annoyance  at  noises;  then  excited 
distress  that  she  should  have  stayed  awake 
all  night;  then  resistance  and  anger  at 
other    people    who    interfered    with   her, 

9 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Over  and  over  that  brain  impression  of 
nervous  illness  was  repeated  by  the  woman 
herself  and  people  about  her  until  she 
seemed  settled  into  it  for  the  rest  of  her 
life.  It  was  like  expecting  a  sore  to  get 
well  while  it  was  constantly  being  rubbed 
and  irritated.  A  woman  might  have  the 
healthiest  blood  in  the  world,  but  if  she 
cut  herself  and  then  rubbed  and  irritated 
the  cut,  and  put  salt  in  it,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  it  to  heal. 

Now  let  me  tell  you  how  this  little 
woman  got  well.  The  first  thing  she  did 
was  to  take  some  very  simple  relaxing 
exercises  while  she  was  lying  in  bed.  She 
raised  her  arms  very  slowly  and  as  loosely 
as  she  could  from  the  elbow  and  then  her 
hands  from  the  wrist,  and  stretched  and 
relaxed  her  fingers  steadily,  then  dropped 
her  hand  and  forearm  heavily,  and  felt  it 
drop  slowly  at  first,  then  quickly  and 
quietly,  with  its  own  weight.     She  tried 

10 


TO   KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

to  shut  her  eyes  like  a  baby  going  to  sleep, 
and  followed  that  with  long,  gentle,  quiet 
breaths.  These  and  other  exercises  gave 
her  an  impression  of  quiet  relaxation  so 
that  she  became  more  sensitive  to  super- 
fluous tension. 

When  she  felt  annoyed  at  noises  she 
easily  noticed  that  in  response  to  the  an- 
noyance her  whole  body  became  tense 
and  strained.  After  she  had  done  her 
exercises  and  felt  quiet  and  rested  some- 
thing would  happen  or  some  one  would 
say  something  that  went  against  the 
grain,  and  quick  as  a  wink  all  the  good 
of  the  exercises  would  be  gone  and  she 
would  be  tight  and  strained  again,  and 
nervously  irritated. 

Very  soon  she  saw  clearly  that  she 
must  learn  to  drop  the  habit  of  physical 
strain  if  she  wanted  to  get  well ;  but  she 
also  learned  what  was  more  —  far  more 
—  important   than  that:    that  she  must 

11 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

conquer  the  cause  of  the  strain  or  she 
could  never  ^permanently  drop  it.  She 
saw  that  the  cause  was  resentment  and 
resistance  to  the  noises  —  the  circum- 
stances, the  people,  and  all  the  variety 
of  things  that  had  ''made  her  nervous." 

Then  she  began  her  steady  journey 
toward  strong  nerves  and  a  wholesome, 
happy  life.  She  began  the  process  of 
changing  her  brain  impressions.  If  she 
heard  noises  that  annoyed  her  she  would 
use  her  will  to  direct  her  attention  toward 
dropping  resistance  to  the  noises,  and  in 
order  to  drop  her  mental  resistance  she 
gave  her  attention  to  loosening  out  the 
bodily  contractions.  Finally  she  became 
interested  in  the  new  process  as  in  a  series 
of  deep  and  true  experiments.  Of  course 
her  living  and  intelligent  interest  enabled 
her  to  gain  very  much  faster,  for  she  not 
only  enjoyed  her  growing  freedom,  but 
she  also  enjoyed  seeing  her  experiments 

12 


TO  KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

work.  Nature  always  tends  toward  health, 
and  if  we  stop  interfering  with  her  she 
will  get  us  well. 

There  is  just  this  difference  between 
the  healing  of  a  physical  sore  and  the 
healing  of  strained  and  irritated  nerves: 
With  the  one  our  bodies  are  healed,  and 
things  go  on  in  them  about  the  same  as 
before.  With  the  other,  every  use  of  the 
will  to  free  ourselves  from  the  irritation 
and  its  cause  not  only  enables  us  to  get 
free  from  the  nervous  illness,  but  in  addi- 
tion brings  us  new  nerve  vigor. 

When  nervous  illness  is  met  deeply 
enough  and  in  the  normal  way,  the  re- 
sult is  that  the  nerves  become  stronger 
than  ever  before. 

Often  the  effect  of  nervous  strain  in 
women  is  constant  talking.  Talk  —  talk 
—  talk,  and  mostly  about  themselves, 
their  ailments,  their  w^orries,  and  the 
hindrances  that  are  put  in  their  way  to 

13 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

prevent  their  getting  well.  This  talking 
is  not  a  relief,  as  people  sometimes  feel. 
It  is  a  direct  waste  of  vigor.  But  the  waste 
would  be  greater  if  the  talk  were  re- 
pressed. The  only  real  help  comes  when 
the  talker  herself  recognizes  the  strain 
of  her  talk  and  "loosens"  into  silence. 

People  must  find  themselves  out  to  get 
well  —  really  well  —  from  nervous  suffer- 
ing. The  cause  of  nervous  strain  is  so 
often  in  the  character  and  in  the  way  we 
meet  circumstances  and  people  that  it 
seems  essential  to  recognize  our  mistakes 
in  that  direction,  and  to  face  them 
squarely  before  we  can  do  our  part 
toward  removing  the  causes  of  any  nerv- 
ous illness. 

Remember  it  is  not  circumstances  that 
keep  us  ill.  It  is  not  people  that  cause 
our  illness.  It  is  not  our  environment 
that  overcomes  us.  It  is  the  way  we  face 
and  deal  with  circumstances,  with  people, 

14 


TO  KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

and  with  environment  that  keeps  our 
nerves  irritated  or  keeps  them  quiet  and 
wholesome  and  steady. 

Let  me  tell  the  story  of  two  men,  both 
of  whom  were  brought  low  by  severe 
nervous  breakdown.  One  complained 
of  his  environment,  complained  of  cir- 
cumstances, complained  of  people. 
Everything  and  every  one  was  the  cause 
of  his  suffering,  except  himself.  The 
result  was  that  he  weakened  his  brain  by 
the  constant  willful  and  enforced  strain, 
so  that  what  little  health  he  regained  was 
the  result  of  Nature's  steady  and  power- 
ful tendency  toward  health,  and  in  spite 
of  the  man  himself. 

The  other  man  —  to  give  a  practical 
instance  —  returned  from  a  journey  taken 
in  order  to  regain  the  strength  which  he 
had  lost  from  not  knowing  how  to  work. 
His  business  agent  met  him  at  the  rail- 
road station  with  a  piece  of  very  bad 

15 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

news.  Instead  of  being  frightened  and 
resisting  and  contracting  in  every  nerve 
of  his  body,  he  took  it  at  once  as  an  op- 
portunity to  drop  resistance.  He  had* 
learned  to  relax  his  body,  and  by  doing 
relaxing  and  quieting  exercises  over  and 
over  he  had  given  himself  a  brain  im- 
pression of  quiet  and  ''let  go"  which  he 
could  recall  at  will.  Instead  of  expressing 
distress  at  the  bad  news  he  used  his  will 
at  once  to  drop  resistance  and  relax; 
and,  to  the  surprise  of  his  informant, 
who  had  felt  that  he  must  break  his  bad 
news  as  easily  as  possible,  he  said: 
''Anything  else?"  Yes,  there  was  an- 
other piece  of  news  about  as  bad  as  the 
first.  "Go  on,"  answered  the  man  who 
had  been  sick  with  nerves;  "tell  me 
something  else." 

And  so  he  did,  until  he  had  told  him 
five  different  things  which  were  about  as 
disagreeable  and  painful  to  hear  as  could 

16 


TO  KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

have  been.  For  every  bit  of  news  our 
friend  used  his  will  with  decision  to  drop 
the  resistance,  which  would,  of  course,  at 
once  arise  in  response  to  all  that  seemed 
to  go  against  him. 

He  had,  of  course,  to  work  at  intervals 
for  long  afterward  to  keep  free  from  the 
resistance;  but  the  habit  is  getting  more 
and  more  established  as  life  goes  on  with 
him,  and  the  result  is  a  brain  clearer  than 
ever  before  in  his  life,  a  power  of  nerve 
which  is  a  surprise  to  every  one  about 
him,  and  a  most  successful  business 
career. 

The  success  in  business  is,  however, 
a  minor  matter.  His  brain  would  have 
cleared  and  his  nerve  strengthened  just 
the  same  if  what  might  be  called  the 
business  luck  had  continued  to  go  against 
him,  as  it  seemed  to  do  for  the  first  few 
months  after  his  recovery.  That  every- 
thing did  go  against  him  for  some  time 
2  17 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

was  the  greatest  blessing  he  could  have 
had.  The  way  he  met  all  the  reverses 
increased  his  nerve  power  steadily  and 
consistently. 

These  two  men  are  fair  examples  of 
two  extremes.  The  first  one  did  not 
know  how  to  meet  life.  If  he  had  had 
the  opportunity  to  learn  he  might  have 
done  as  well  as  the  other.  The  second 
had  worked  and  studied  to  help  himself 
out  of  nerves,  and  had  found  the  true 
secret  of  doing  it. 

Some  men,  however,  and,  I  regret  to 
say,  more  women,  have  the  weakening 
habit  so  strong  upon  them  that  they  are 
unwilling  to  learn  how  to  get  well,  even 
when  they  have  the  opportunity.  It 
seems  so  strange  to  see  people  suffer  in- 
tensely —  and  be  unwilling  to  face  and 
follow  the  only  way  that  will  lead  them 
out  of  their  torture. 

The  trouble  is  we  want  our  own  way 

18 


TO  KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

and  nervous  health,  too,  and  with  those 
who  have  once  broken  down  nervously 
the  only  chance  of  permanent  health  is 
through  learning  to  drop  the  strain  of 
resistance  when  things  do  not  go  their 
way.  This  is  proved  over  and  over  by 
the  constant  relapse  into  "nerves"  which 
comes  to  those  who  have  simply  been 
healed  over.  Even  with  those  who  ap- 
pear to  have  been  well  for  some  time,  if 
they  have  not  acquired  the  habit  of 
dropping  their  mental  and  physical  ten- 
sion you  can  always  detect  an  overcare 
for  themselves  which  means  dormant 
fear  —  or  even  active  fear  in  the  back- 
ground. 

There  are  some  wounds  which  the  sur- 
geons keep  open,  even  though  the  proc- 
ess is  most  painful,  because  they  know 
that  to  heal  really  they  must  heal  from 
the  inside.  Healing  over  on  the  outside 
only  means  decay  underneath,  and  even- 

19 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

tual  death.  This  is  in  most  cases  exactly 
synonymous  with  the  healing  of  broken- 
down  nerves.  They  must  be  healed  in 
causes  to  be  permanently  cured.  Some- 
times the  change  that  comes  in  the  process 
is  so  great  that  it  is  like  reversing  an 
engine. 

If  the  little  woman  whom  I  mentioned 
first  had  practiced  relaxing  and  quieting 
exercises  every  day  for  years,  and  had 
not  used  the  quiet  impression  gained  by 
the  exercises  to  help  her  in  dropping 
mental  resistances,  she  never  would  have 
gained  her  health. 

Concentrating  steadily  on  dropping  the 
tension  of  the  body  is  very  radically  help- 
ful in  dropping  resistance  from  the  mind, 
and  the  right  idea  is  to  do  the  exercises 
over  and  over  until  the  impression  of 
quiet  openness  is,  by  constant  repetition, 
so  strong  with  us  that  we  can  recall  it  at 
will  whenever  we  need  it.    Finally,  after 

20 


TO   KEEP  FROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

repeated  tests,  we  gain  the  habit  of  meet- 
ing the  difficulties  of  life  without  strain 
—  first  in  little  ways,  and  then  in  larger 
ways. 

The  most  quieting,  relaxing,  and 
strengthening  of  all  exercises  for  the 
nerves  comes  in  deep  and  rhythmic 
breathing,  and  in  voice  exercises  in  con- 
nection with  it.  Nervous  strain  is  more 
evident  in  a  voice  than  in  any  other 
expressive  part  of  man  or  woman.  It 
sometimes  seems  as  if  all  other  relaxing 
exercises  were  mainly  useful  because  of 
opening  a  way  for  us  to  breathe  better. 
There  is  a  pressure  on  every  part  of  the 
body  when  we  inhale,  and  a  consequent 
reaction  when  we  exhale,  and  the  more 
passive  the  body  is  when  we  take  our  deep 
breaths  the  more  freely  and  quietly  the 
blood  can  circulate  all  the  way  through 
it,  and,  of  course,  all  nervous  and  muscu- 
lar contraction  impairs  circulation,   and 

21 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

all  impaired  circulation  eraphasizes  nerv- 
ous contraction. 

To  any  one  who  is  suffering  from 
"nerves,"  in  a  lesser  or  greater  degree,  it 
could  not  fail  to  be  of  very  great  help  to 
take  half  an  hour  in  the  morning,  lie  flat 
on  the  back,  with  the  body  as  loose  and 
heavy  as  it  can  be  made,  and  then  study 
taking  gentle,  quiet,  and  rhythmic  breaths, 
long  and  short.  Try  to  have  the  body  so 
loose  and  open  and  responsive  that  it 
will  open  as  you  inhale  and  relax  as  you 
exhale,  just  as  a  rubber  bag  would.  Of 
course,  it  will  take  time,  but  the  refresh- 
ing quiet  is  sure  to  come  if  the  practice 
is  repeated  regularly  for  a  long  enough 
time,  and  eventually  we  would  no  more 
miss  it  than  we  would  go  without  our 
dinner. 

We  must  be  careful  after  each  deep, 
long  breath  to  rest  quietly  and  let  our 
lungs  do  as  they  please.     Be  careful  to 

22 


TO  KEEP  PROM  BEING  NERVOUS 

begin  the  breaths  delicately  and  gently, 
to  inhale  with  the  same  gentleness  with 
which  we  begin,  and  to  make  the  change 
from  inhaling  to  exhaling  with  the  greatest 
delicacy  possible — keeping  the  body  loose. 

For  the  shorter  breaths  we  can  count 
three,  or  five,  or  ten  to  inhale,  and  the 
same  number  to  exhale,  until  we  have  the 
rhythm  established,  and  then  go  on 
breathing  without  counting,  as  if  we  were 
sound  asleep.  Always  aim  for  gentle- 
ness and  delicacy.  If  we  have  not  half 
an  hour  to  spare  to  lie  quietly  and  breathe 
we  can  practice  the  breathing  while  we 
walk.  It  is  wonderful  how  we  detect 
strain  and  resistance  in  our  breath,  and 
the  restfulness  which  comes  when  we 
breathe  so  gently  that  the  breath  seems  to 
come  and  go  without  our  volition  brings 
new  life  with  it. 

We  must  expect  to  gain  slowly  and  be 
patient;    we  must  remember  that  nerves 

2S 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

always  get  well  by  ups  and  downs,  and 
use  our  wills  to  make  every  down  lead  to 
a  higher  up.  If  we  want  the  lasting  bene- 
fit, or  any  real  benefit  at  all  when  we  get 
the  brain  impression  of  quiet  freedom 
from  these  breathing  exercises,  we  must 
insist  upon  recalling  that  impression  every 
time  a  test  comes,  and  face  the  circum- 
stances, or  the  person,  or  the  duty  with  a 
voluntary  insistence  upon  a  quiet,  open 
brain,  rather  than  a  tense,  resistant  one. 

It  will  come  hard  at  first,  but  we  are 
sure  to  get  there  if  we  keep  steadily  at  it, 
for  it  is  really  the  Law  of  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  that  we  are  learning  to  obey, 
and  this  process  of  learning  gives  us 
steadily  an  enlarged  appreciation  of  what 
trust  in  the  Lord  really  is.  There  is  no 
trust  without  obedience,  and  an  intelli- 
gent obedience  begets  trust.  The  nerves 
touch  the  soul  on  one  side  and  the  body 
on  the  other,  and  we  must  work  for  free- 


TO   KEEP   FROM   BEING   NERVOUS 

dom  of  soul  and  body  in  response  to 
spiritual  and  physical  law  if  we  want  to 
get  sick  nerves  well.  If  we  do  not  re- 
member always  a  childlike  attitude  toward 
the  Lord  the  best  nerve  training  is  only 
an  easy  way  of  being  selfish. 

To  sum  it  all  up  —  if  you  want  to 
learn  to  help  yourself  out  of  ''nerves" 
learn  to  rest  when  you  rest  and  to  work 
without  strain  when  you  work;  learn  to 
loosen  out  of  the  muscular  contractions 
which  the  nerves  cause;  learn  to  drop 
the  mental  resistances  which  cause  the 
"nerves,"  and  which  take  the  form  of 
anger,  resentment,  worry,  anxiety,  im- 
patience, annoyance,  or  self-pity;  eat 
only  nourishing  food,  eat  it  slowly,  and 
chew  it  well;  breathe  the  freshest  air 
you  can,  and  breathe  it  deeply,  gently, 
and  rhythmically;  take  what  healthy, 
vigorous  exercise  you  find  possible;  do 
your  daily  work  to  the  best  of  your  ability ; 

25 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

give  your  attention  so  entirely  to  the  proc- 
ess of  gaining  health  for  the  sake  of  your 
work  and  other  people  that  you  have  no 
mind  left  with  which  to  complain  of  being 
ill,  and  see  that  all  this  effort  aims  toward 
a  more  intelligent  obedience  to  and  trust- 
fulness in  the  Power  that  gives  us  life. 
Wholesome,  sustained  concentration  is  in 
the  very  essence  of  healthy  nerves. 


26 


Chapter  III 

**You  Have  no  Idea  how  I  am 
Rushed'^ 

A  WOMAN  can  feel  rushed  when 
she  is  sitting  perfectly  still  and  has 
really  nothing  whatever  to  do.  A 
woman  can  feel  at  leisure  when  she  is 
working  diligently  at  something,  with  a 
hundred  other  things  waiting  to  be  done 
when  the  time  comes.  It  is  not  all  we 
have  to  do  that  gives  us  the  rushed  feel- 
ing ;  it  is  the  way  we  do  what  is  before  us. 
It  is  the  attitude  we  take  toward  our 
work. 

Now  this  rushed  feeling  in  the  brain  and 
nerves  is  intensely  oppressive.  Many 
women,  and  men  too,  suffer  from  it  keenly, 
and  they  suffer  the  more  because  they  do 
not  recognize  that  that  feeling  of  rush  is 

■^1 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

really  entirely  distinct  from  what  they 
have  to  do ;  in  truth  it  has  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  it. 

I  have  seen  a  woman  suffer  painfully 
with  the  sense  of  being  pushed  for  time 
when  she  had  only  two  things  to  do  in  the 
whole  day,  and  those  two  things  at  most 
need  not  take  more  than  an  hour  each. 
This  same  woman  was  always  crying  for 
rest.  I  never  knew,  before  I  saw  her, 
that  women  could  get  just  as  abnormal 
in  their  efforts  to  rest  as  in  their  insistence 
upon  overwork.  This  little  lady  never 
rested  when  she  went  to  rest;  she  would 
lie  on  the  bed  for  hours  in  a  state  of  strain 
about  resting  that  was  enough  to  tire  any 
ordinarily  healthy  woman.  One  friend 
used  to  tell  her  that  she  was  an  inebriate 
on  resting.  It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say 
that  she  was  a  nervous  invalid,  and  in  the 
process  of  gaining  her  health  she  had  to 
be  set  to  work  and  kept  at  work.    Many 

28 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

and  many  a  time  she  has  cried  and  begged 
for  rest  when  it  was  not  rest  she  needed 
at  all :  it  was  work. 

She  has  started  off  to  some  good, 
healthy  work  crying  and  sobbing  at  the 
cruelty  that  made  her  go,  and  has  re- 
turned from  the  work  as  happy  and 
healthy,  apparently,  as  a  little  child. 
Then  she  could  go  to  rest  and  rest  to  some 
purpose.  She  had  been  busy  in  wholesome 
action  and  the  normal  reaction  came  in 
her  rest.  As  she  grew  more  naturally 
interested  in  her  work  she  rested  less  and 
less,  and  she  rested  better  and  better 
because  she  had  something  to  rest  from 
and  something  to  rest  for. 

Now  she  does  only  a  normal  amount  of 
resting,  but  gets  new  life  from  every 
moment  of  rest  she  takes ;  before,  all  her 
rest  only  made  her  want  more  rest  and 
kept  her  always  in  the  strain  of  fatigue. 
And  what  might  seem  to  many  a  very 

29 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

curious  result  is  that  as  the  abnormal 
desire  for  rest  disappeared  the  rushed 
feeling  disappeared,  too. 

There  is  no  one  thing  that  American 
women  need  more  than  a  healthy  habit  of 
rest,  but  it  has  got  to  be  real  rest,  not 
strained  nor  self-indulgent  rest. 

Another  example  of  this  effort  at  rest 
which  is  a  sham  and  a  strain  is  the  woman 
who  insists  upon  taking  a  certain  time 
every  day  in  which  to  rest.  She  insists 
upon  doing  everything  quietly  and  with 
—  as  she  thinks  —  a  sense  of  leisure,  and 
yet  she  keeps  the  whole  household  in  a 
sense  of  turmoil  and  does  not  know  it. 
She  sits  complacently  in  her  pose  of 
prompt  action,  quietness  and  rest,  and 
has  a  tornado  all  about  her.  She  is  so 
deluded  in  her  own  idea  of  herself  that 
she  does  not  observe  the  tornado,  and  yet 
she  has  caused  it.  Everybody  in  her 
household  is  tired  out  with  her  demands, 

30 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

and  she  herself  is  ill,  chronically  ill.  But 
she  thinks  she  is  at  peace,  and  she  is 
annoyed  that  others  should  be  tired. 

If  this  woman  could  open  and  let  out 
her  own  interior  tornado,  which  she  has 
kept  frozen  in  there  by  her  false  attitude 
of  restful  quiet,  she  would  be  more  ill  for 
a  time,  but  it  might  open  her  eyes  to  the 
true  state  of  things  and  enable  her  to  rest 
to  some  purpose  and  to  allow  her  house- 
hold to  rest,  too. 

It  seems,  at  first  thought,  strange  that  in 
this  country,  when  the  right  habit  of  rest 
is  so  greatly  needed,  that  the  strain  of  rest 
should  have  become  in  late  years  one  of 
the  greatest  defects.  On  second  thought, 
however,  we  see  that  it  is  a  perfectly 
rational  result.  We  have  strained  to  work 
and  strained  to  play  and  strained  to  live 
for  so  long  that  when  the  need  for  rest 
gets  so  imperative  that  we  feel  we  must 
rest  the  habit  of  strain  is  so  upon  us  that 

31 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

we  strain  to  rest.  And  what  does  such 
"rest"  amount  to?  What  strength  does 
it  bring  us  ?  What  enHghtenment  do  we 
get  from  it  ? 

With  the  little  lady  of  whom  I  first  spoke 
rest  was  a  steadily- weakening  process. 
She  was  resting  her  body  straight  toward 
its  grave.  When  a  body  rests  and  rests 
the  circulation  gets  more  and  more  slug- 
gish until  it  breeds  disease  in  the  weakest 
organ,  and  then  the  physicians  seem  in- 
clined to  give  their  attention  to  the  disease, 
and  not  to  the  cause  of  the  abnormal  strain 
which  was  behind  the  disease.  Again,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  abnormal,  rushed 
feeling  can  exist  just  as  painfully  with  too 
much  and  the  wrong  kind  of  rest  as  with 
too  much  work  and  the  wrong  way  of 
working. 

We  have  been,  as  a  nation,  inclined 
toward  *'Americanitis"  for  so  long  now 
that  children  and  children's  children  have 

32 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

inherited  a  sense  of  rush,  and  they  suffer 
intensely  from  it  with  a  perfectly  clear 
understanding  of  the  fact  that  they  have 
nothing  whatever  to  hurry  about.  This 
is  quite  as  true  of  men  as  it  is  of  women. 
In  such  cases  the  first  care  should  be  not 
to  fasten  this  sense  of  rush  on  to  anything ; 
the  second  care  should  be  to  go  to  work 
to  cure  it,  to  relax  out  of  that  contraction 
—  just  as  you  would  work  to  cure  twitch- 
ing, St.  Vitus's  dance,  or  any  other 
nervous  habit. 

Many  women  will  get  up  and  dress  in 
the  morning  as  if  they  had  to  catch  a  train, 
and  they  will  come  in  to  breakfast  as  if 
it  were  a  steamer  for  the  other  side  of  the 
world  that  they  had  to  get,  and  no  other 
steamer  went  for  six  months.  They  do 
not  know  that  they  are  in  a  rush  and  a 
hurry,  and  they  do  not  find  it  out  until 
the  strain  has  been  on  them  for  so  long 
that  they  get  nervously  ill  from  it  —  and 
s  33 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

then  they  find  themselves  suffering  from 
"that  rushed  feeling." 

Watch  some  women  in  an  argument 
pushing,  actually  rushing,  to  prove  them- 
selves right;  they  will  hardly  let  their 
opponent  have  an  opportunity  to  speak, 
much  less  will  they  stop  to  consider  what 
he  says  and  see  if  by  chance  he  may  not 
be  right  and  they  wrong. 

The  rushing  habit  is  not  by  any  means 
in  the  fact  of  doing  many  things.  It 
asserts  itself  in  our  brains  in  talking,  in 
writing,  in  thinking.  How  many  of  us,  I 
wonder,  have  what  might  be  called  a  quiet 
working  brain  ?  Most  of  us  do  not  even 
know  the  standard  of  a  brain  that  thinks 
and  talks  and  lives  quietly :  a  brain  that 
never  pushes  and  never  rushes,  or,  if  by 
any  chance  it  is  led  into  pushing  or  rush- 
ing, is  so  wholesomely  sensitive  that  it 
drops  the  push  or  the  rush  as  a  bare  hand 
would  drop  a  red-hot  coal. 

34 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

None  of  us  can  appreciate  the  weaken- 
ing power  of  this  strained  habit  of  rush 
until  we  have,  by  the  use  of  our  own  wills, 
directed  our  minds  toward  finding  a 
normal  habit  of  quiet,  and  yet  I  do  not  in 
the  least  exaggerate  w^hen  I  say  that  its 
weakening  effect  on  the  brain  and  nerves 
is  frightful.  * 

And  again  I  repeat,  the  rushed  feeling 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  work 
before  us.  A  woman  can  feel  quite  as 
rushed  when  she  has  nothing  to  do  as 
when  she  is  extremely  busy. 

"But,"  some  one  says,  "may  I  not  feel 
pressed  for  time  when  I  have  more  to  do 
than  I  can  possibly  put  into  the  time 
before  me.?" 

Oh,  yes,  yes  —  you  can  feel  normally 
pressed  for  time;  and  because  of  this 
pressure  you  can  arrange  in  your  mind 
what  best  to  leave  undone,  and  so  relieve 
the  pressure.     If  one  thing  seems  as  im- 

35 


NERVES  AND   QOMMON  SENSE 

portant  to  do  as  another  you  can  make 
up  your  mind  that  of  course  you  can  only 
do  what  you  have  time  for,  and  the  re- 
mainder must  go.  You  cannot  do  what 
you  have  time  to  do  so  well  if  you  are 
worrying  about  what  you  have  no  time 
for.  There  need  be  no  abnormal  sense 
of  rush  about  it. 

Just  as  Nature  tends  toward  health, 
Nature  tends  toward  rest  —  toward  the 
right  kind  of  rest;  and  if  we  have  lost 
the  true  knack  of  resting  we  can  just  as 
surely  find  it  as  a  sunflower  can  find  the 
sun.  It  is  not  something  artificial  that  we 
are  trying  to  learn  —  it  is  something 
natural  and  alive,  something  that  belongs 
to  us,  and  our  own  best  instinct  will  come 
to  our  aid  in  finding  it  if  we  will  only  first 
turn  our  attention  toward  finding  our 
own  best  instinct. 

We  must  have  something  to  rest  from, 
and  we  must  have  something  to  rest  for, 

36 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

if  we  want  to  find  the  real  power  of  rest. 
Then  we  must  learn  to  let  go  of  our  nerves 
and  our  muscles,  to  leave  everything  in 
our  bodies  open  and  passive  so  that  our 
circulation  can  have  its  own  best  way. 
But  we  must  have  had  some  activity  in 
order  to  have  given  our  circulation  a  fair 
start  before  we  can  expect  it  to  do  its  best 
when  we  are  passive. 

Then,  what  is  most  important,  we  must 
learn  to  drop  all  effort  of  our  minds  if  we 
want  to  know  how  to  rest;  and  that  is 
difficult.  We  can  do  it  best  by  keeping 
our  minds  concentrated  on  something 
simple  and  quiet  and  wholesome.  For 
instance,  you  feel  tired  and  rushed  and 
you  can  have  half  an  hour  in  which  to 
rest  and  get  rid  of  the  rush.  Suppose  you 
lie  down  on  the  bed  and  imagine  yourself 
a  turbulent  lake  after  a  storm.  The  storm 
is  dying  down,  dying  down,  until  by  and 
by  there  is  no  wind,  only  little  dashing 

37 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

waves  that  the  wind  has  left.  Then  the 
waves  quiet  down  steadily,  more  and 
more,  until  finally  they  are  only  ripples 
on  the  water.  Then  no  ripples,  but  the 
water  is  as  still  as  glass.  The  sun  goes 
down.  The  sky  glows.  Twilight  comes. 
One  star  appears,  and  green  banks  and 
trees  and  sky  and  stars  are  all  reflected  in 
the  quiet  mirror  of  the  lake,  and  you  are 
the  lake,  and  you  are  quiet  and  refreshed 
and  rested  and  ready  to  get  up  and  go  on 
with  your  work  —  to  go  on  with  it,  too, 
better  and  more  quietly  than  when  you 
left  it. 

Or,  another  way  to  quiet  your  mind  and 
to  let  your  imagination  help  you  to  a 
better  rest  is  to  float  on  the  top  of  a  tur- 
bulent sea  and  then  to  sink  down,  down, 
down  until  you  get  into  the  still  water  at 
the  bottom  of  the  sea.  We  all  know  that, 
no  matter  how  furious  the  sea  is  on  the 
surface,  not  far  below  the  surface  it  is 

38 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

absolutely  still.  It  is  very  restful  to  go 
down  there  in  imagination. 

Whatever  choice  we  may  make  to 
quiet  our  minds  and  our  bodies,  as  soon 
as  we  begin  to  concentrate  we  must  not 
be  surprised  if  intruding  thoughts  are 
at  first  constantly  crowding  to  get  in.  We 
must  simply  let  them  come.  Let  them 
come,  and  pay  no  attention  to  them. 

I  knew  of  a  woman  who  was  nervously 
ill,  and  some  organs  of  her  body  were 
weakened  very  much  by  the  illness.  She 
made  up  her  mind  to  rest  herself  well  and 
she  did  so.  Every  day  she  would  rest  for 
three  hours;  she  said  to  herself,  "I  will 
rest  an  hour  on  my  left  side,  an  hour  on 
my  right  side,  and  an  hour  on  my  back." 
And  she  did  that  for  days  and  days. 
When  she  lay  on  one  side  she  had  a  very 
attractive  tree  to  look  at.  When  she  lay 
on  the  other  she  had  an  interesting  pic- 
ture before  her.     When  she  lay  on  her 

39 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

back  she  had  the  sky  and  several  trees  to 
see  through  a  window  in  front  of  the  bed. 
She  grew  steadily  better  every  week  — 
she  had  something  to  rest  for.  She  was 
resting  to  get  well.  If  she  had  rested 
and  complained  of  her  illness  I  doubt  if 
she  would  have  been  well  to-day.  She 
simply  refused  to  take  the  unpleasant 
sensations  into  consideration  except  for 
the  sake  of  resting  out  of  them.  When 
she  was  well  enough  to  take  a  little  active 
exercise  she  knew  she  could  rest  better 
and  get  well  faster  for  that,  and  she  in- 
sisted upon  taking  the  exercise,  although 
at  first  she  had  to  do  it  with  the  greatest 
care.  Now  that  this  woman  is  well  she 
knows  how  to  rest  and  she  knows  how  to 
work  better  than  ever  before. 

For  normal  rest  we  need  the  long  sleep 
of  night.  For  shorter  rests  which  we 
may  take  during  the  day,  often  opportu- 
nity comes  at  most  unexpected  times  and 

40 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

in  most  unexpected  ways,  and  we  must 
be  ready  to  take  advantage  of  it.  We 
need  also  the  habit  of  working  restfully. 
This  habit  of  course  enables  us  to  rest 
truly  when  we  are  only  resting,  and  again 
the  habit  of  resting  normally  helps  us 
to  work  normally. 

A  wise  old  lady  said:  "My  dear,  you 
cannot  exaggerate  the  unimportance  of 
things."  She  expressed  even  more,  per- 
haps, than  she  knew. 

It  is  our  habit  of  exaggerating  the 
importance  of  things  that  keeps  us  hurried 
and  rushed.  It  is  our  habit  of  exag- 
gerating the  importance  of  ourselves  that 
makes  us  hold  the  strain  of  life  so  in- 
tensely. If  we  would  be  content  to  do 
one  thing  at  a  time,  and  concentrate  on 
that  one  thing  until  it  came  time  to  do 
the  next  thing,  it  would  astonish  us  to  see 
how  much  we  should  accomplish.  A 
healthy  concentration  is  at  the  root  of 

41 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

working  restfully  and  of  resting  restfully, 
for  a  healthy  concentration  means  drop- 
ping everything  that  interferes. 

I  know  there  are  women  who  read  this 
article  who  will  say;  ''Oh,  yes,  that  is  all 
very  well  for  some  women,  but  it  does 
not  apply  in  the  least  to  a  woman  who 
has  my  responsibilities,  or  to  a  woman 
who  has  to  work  as  I  have  to  work." 

My  answer  to  that  is:  "Dear  lady, 
you  are  the  very  one  to  whom  it  does 
apply!" 

The  more  work  we  have  to  do,  the 
harder  our  lives  are,  the  more  we  need 
the  best  possible  principles  to  lighten  our 
work  and  to  enlighten  our  lives.  We  are 
here  in  the  world  at  school  and  we  do  not 
want  to  stay  in  the  primary  classes 

The  harder  our  lives  are  and  the  more 
we  are  handicapped  the  more  truly  we 
can  learn  to  make  every  limitation  an 
opportunity  —  and  if  we  persistently  do 

42 


HOW  I  AM  RUSHED 

that  through  circumstances,  no  matter 
how  severe,  the  nearer  we  are  to  getting 
our  diploma.  To  gain  our  freedom  from 
the  rushed  feehng,  to  find  a  quiet  mind 
in  place  of  an  unquiet  one,  is  worth  work- 
ing hard  for  through  any  number  of 
difficulties.  And  think  of  the  benefit 
such  a  quiet  mind  could  be  to  other 
people !  Especially  if  the  quiet  mind 
were  the  mind  of  a  woman,  for,  at  the 
present  day,  think  what  a  contrast  she 
would  be  to  other  women ! 

When  a  woman's  mind  is  turbulent  it 
is  the  worst  kind  of  turbulence.  When 
it  is  quiet  we  can  almost  say  it  is  the  best 
kind  of  quiet,  humanly  speaking. 


43 


Chapter  IV 

Why  does  Mrs.  Smith  get  on 
My  Nerves? 

IF  you  want  to  know  the  true  answer 
to  this  question  it  is  ''because  you 
are  unwiUing  that  Mrs.  Smith 
should  be  herself."  You  want  her  to  be 
just  hke  you,  or,  if  not  just  like  you,  you 
want  her  to  be  just  as  you  would  best 
like  her. 

I  have  seen  a  woman  so  annoyed  that 
she  could  not  eat  her  supper  because 
another  woman  ate  sugar  on  baked 
beans.  When  this  woman  told  me  later 
what  it  was  that  had  taken  away  her 
appetite  she  added:  "And  isn't  it  ab- 
surd ?  Why  should  n't  Mrs.  Smith  eat 
sugar  on  baked  beans  .^  It  does  not  hurt 
me.    I  do  not  have  to  taste  the  sugar  on 

44 


MRS.   SMITH  GETS  ON  MY  NERVES 

the  beans;  but  is  it  such  an  odd  thing 
to  do.  It  seems  to  me  such  bad  manners 
that  I  just  get  so  mad  I  can't  eat ! " 

Now,  could  there  be  anything  more 
absurd  than  that  ?  To  see  a  woman 
annoyed;  to  see  her  recognize  that  she 
was  uselessly  and  foolishly  annoyed,  and 
yet  to  see  that  she  makes  not  the  slightest 
effort  to  get  over  her  annoyance. 

It  is  like  the  woman  who  discovered 
that  she  spoke  aloud  in  church,  and  was 
so  surprised  that  she  exclaimed :  '*Why, 
I  spoke  out  loud  in  church!"  and  then, 
again  surprised,  she  cried:  "Why,  I 
keep  speaking  aloud  in  church!"  —  and 
it  did  not  occur  to  her  to  stop. 

My  friend  would  have  refused  an  in- 
vitation to  supper,  I  truly  believe,  if  she 
had  known  that  Mrs.  Smith  would  be 
there  and  her  hostess  would  have  baked 
beans.  She  was  really  a  slave  to  Mrs. 
Smith's  way  of  eating  baked  beans. 

45 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

"Well,  I  do  not  blame  her,"  I  hear 
some  reader  say;  ''it  is  entirely  out  of 
place  to  eat  sugar  on  baked  beans.  Why 
should  n't  she  be  annoyed  ?" 

I  answer:  ''Why  should  she  be  an- 
noyed? Will  her  annoyance  stop  Mrs. 
Smith's  eating  sugar  on  baked  beans  ? 
Will  she  in  any  way  —  selfish  or  other- 
wise —  be  the  gainer  for  her  annoyance  ? 
Furthermore,  if  it  were  the  custom  to 
eat  sugar  on  baked  beans,  as  it  is  the 
custom  to  put  sugar  in  coffee,  this  woman 
would  not  have  been  annoyed  at  all.  It 
was  simply  the  fact  of  seeing  Mrs.  Smith 
digress  from  the  ordinary  course  of  life 
that  annoyed  her." 

It  is  the  same  thing  that  makes  a  horse 
shy.  The  horse  does  not  say  to  himself, 
"There  is  a  large  carriage,  moving  with 
no  horse  to  pull  it,  with  nothing  to  push 
it,  with  —  so  far  as  I  can  see  —  no  motive 
power  at  all.    How  weird  that  is !    How 

46 


MRS.   SMITH   GETS   ON   MY  NERVES 

frightful !"  —  and,  with  a  quickly  beating 
heart,  jump  aside  and  caper  in  scared 
excitement.  A  horse  when  he  first  sees 
an  automobile  gets  an  impression  on 
his  brain  which  is  entirely  out  of  his 
ordinary  course  of  impressions  —  it  is  as 
if  some  one  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
struck  him,  and  he  shies  and  jumps. 
The  horse  is  annoyed,  but  he  does  not 
know  what  it  is  that  annoys  him.  Now, 
when  a  horse  shies  you  drive  him  away 
from  the  automobile  and  quiet  him  down, 
and  then,  if  you  are  a  good  trainer,  you 
drive  him  back  again  right  in  front  of 
that  car  or  some  other  one,  and  you  re- 
peat the  process  until  the  automobile 
becomes  an  ordinary  impression  to  him, 
and  he  is  no  longer  afraid  of  it. 

There  is,  however,  just  this  difference 
between  a  woman  and  a  horse:  the 
woman  has  her  own  free  will  behind  her 
annoyance,  and  a  horse  has  not.     If  my 

47 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

friend  had  asked  Mrs.  Smith  to  supper 
twice  a  week,  and  had  served  baked 
beans  each  time  and  herself  passed  her 
the  sugar  with  careful  courtesy,  and  if 
she  had  done  it  all  deliberately  for  the 
sake  of  getting  over  her  annoyance,  she 
would  probably  have  only  increased  it 
until  the  strain  would  have  got  on  her 
nerves  much  more  seriously  than  Mrs. 
Smith  ever  had.  Not  only  that,  but  she 
would  have  found  herself  resisting  other 
people's  peculiarities  more  than  ever  be- 
fore; I  have  seen  people  in  nervous 
prostration  from  causes  no  more  serious 
than  that,  on  the  surface.  It  is  the  habit 
of  resistance  and  resentment  back  of 
the  surface  annoyance  which  is  the  serious 
cause  of  many  a  woman's  attack  of  nerves. 
Every  woman  is  a  slave  to  every  other 
woman  who  annoys  her.  She  is  tied  to 
each  separate  woman  who  has  got  on  her 
nerves  by  a  wire  which  is  pulling,  pulling 

48 


MRS.   SMITH   GETS   ON  MY  NERVES 

the  nervous  force  right  out  of  her.  And 
it  is  not  the  other  woman's  fault  —  it  is 
her  own.  The  wire  is  puUing,  whether 
or  not  we  are  seeing  or  thinking  of  the 
other  woman,  for,  having  once  been  an- 
noyed by  her,  the  contraction  is  right 
there  in  our  brains.  It  is  just  so  much 
deposited  strain  in  our  nervous  systems 
which  will  stay  there  until  we,  of  our 
own  free  wills,  have  yielded  out  of  it. 

The  horse  was  not  resenting  nor  re- 
sisting the  automobile;  therefore  the 
strain  of  his  frio:ht  was  at  once  removed 
when  the  automobile  became  an  ordinary 
impression.  A  woman,  when  she  gets 
a  new  impression  that  she  does  not  like, 
resents  and  resists  it  with  her  mil,  and 
she  has  got  to  get  in  behind  that  resistance 
and  drop  it  with  her  will  before. she  is  a 
free  woman. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  many  disagreeable 
things  that  annoy  for  a  time,  and  then, 
4  49 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

as  the  expression  goes,  we  get  hardened 
to  them.  But  few  of  us  know  that  this 
hardening  is  just  so  much  packed  re- 
sistance which  is  going  to  show  itself 
later  in  some  unpleasant  form  and  make 
us  ill  in  mind  or  body.  We  have  got  to 
yield,  yield,  yield  out  of  every  bit  of  resist- 
ance and  resentment  to  other  people  if  we 
want  to  be  free.  No  reasoning  about  it 
is  going  to  do  us  any  good.  No  passing 
back  and  forth  in  front  of  it  is  going  to 
free  us.  We  must  yield  first  and  then  we 
can  see  clearly  and  reason  justly.  We 
must  yield  first  and  then  we  can  go 'back 
and  forth  in  front  of  it,  and  it  will  only 
be  a  reminder  to  yield  every  time  until 
the  habit  of  yielding  has  become  habitual 
and  the  strength  of  nerve  and  strength 
of  character  developed  by  means  of  the 
yielding  have  been  established. 

Let    me    explain    more    fully    what    I 
mean  by  ''yielding."     Every  annoyance, 

50 


MRS.  SMITH  GETS  ON  MY  NERVES 

resistance,  or  feeling  of  resentment  con- 
tracts us  in  some  way  physically;  if  we 
turn  our  attention  toward  dropping  that 
physical  contraction,  with  a  real  desire 
to  get  rid  of  the  resistance  behind  it,  we 
shall  find  that  dropping  the  physical 
strain  opens  the  way  to  drop  the  mental 
and  moral  strain,  and  when  we  have 
really  dropped  the  strain  we  invariably 
find  reason  and  justice  and  even  gen- 
erosity toward  others  waiting  to  come 
to  us. 

There  is  one  important  thing  to  be 
looked  out  for  in  this  normal  process  of 
freeing  ourselves  from  other  people.  A 
young  girl  said  once  to  her  teacher:  "I 
got  mad  the  other  day  and  I  relaxed,  and 
the  more  I  relaxed  the  madder  I  got !" 

"Did  you  want  to  get  over  the  anger .?" 
asked  the  teacher. 

"No,  I  did  n't,"  was  the  prompt  and 
ready  answer. 

51 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Of  course,  as  this  child  relaxed  out 
of  the  tension  of  her  anger,  there  was  only 
more  anger  to  take  its  place,  and  the 
more  she  relaxed  the  more  free  her  nerves 
were  to  take  the  impression  of  the  anger 
hoarded  up  in  her;  consequently  it  was 
as  she  said:  the  more  she  relaxed  the 
"madder"  she  got.  Later,  this  same 
little  girl  came  to  understand  fully  that 
she  must  have  a  real  desire  to  get  over 
her  anger  in  order  to  have  better  feelings 
come  up  after  she  had  dropped  the  con- 
traction of  the  anger. 

I  know  of  a  woman  who  has  been  hold- 
ing such  steady  hatred  for  certain  other 
people  that  the  strain  of  it  has  kept  her 
ill,  And  it  is  all  a  matter  of  feeling :  first, 
that  these  people  have  interfered  with 
her  welfare ;  second,  that  they  differ  from 
her  in  opinion.  Every  once  in  a  while 
her  hatred  finds  a  vent  and  spends  itself 
in  tears  and  bitter  words.     Then,  after 

52 


MRS.   SMITH   GETS   ON  MY  NERVES 

the  external  relief  of  letting  out  her  pent- 
up  feeling,  she  closes  up  again  and  one 
would  think  from  her  voice  and  manner 
—  if  one  did  not  look  very  deep  in  —  that 
she  had  only  kindliness  for  every  one. 
But  she  stays  nervously  ill  right  along. 

How  could  she  do  otherwise  with 
that  strain  in  her.?  If  she  were  consti- 
tutionally a  strong  woman  this  strain  of 
hatred  would  have  worn  on  her,  though 
possibly  not  have  made  her  really  ill; 
but,  being  naturally  sensitive  and  deli- 
cate, the  strain  has  kept  her  an  invalid 
altogether. 

"Mother,  I  can't  stand  Maria,"  one 
daughter  says  to  her  mother,  and  when 
inquiry  is  made  the  mother  finds  that 
what  her  daughter  "cannot  stand"  is 
ways  that  differ  from  her  own.  Some- 
times, however,  they  are  very  disagree- 
able ways  which  are  exactly  like  the  ways 
of  the  person  who  cannot  stand  them.    If 

53 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

one  person  is  imperious  and  demanding 
she  will  get  especially  annoyed  at  an- 
other person  for  being  imperious  and  de- 
manding, without  a  suspicion  that  she  is 
objecting  vehemently  to  a  reflection  of 
herself. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  people 
get  on  our  nerves.  The  first  way  lies  in 
their  difference  from  us  in  habit  —  in 
little  things  and  in  big  things ;  their  habits 
are  not  our  habits.  Their  habits  may  be 
all  right,  and  our  habits  may  be  all  right, 
but  they  are  ''different."  Why  should 
we  not  be  willing  to  have  them  different  ? 
Is  there  any  reason  for  it  except  the  very 
empty  one  that  we  consciously  and  un- 
consciously want  every  one  else  to  be  just 
like  us,  or  to  believe  just  as  we  do,  or  to 
behave  just  as  we  do.^  And  what  sense 
is  there  in  that  ? 

"I  cannot  stand  Mrs.  So-and-so;  she 
gets  into  a  rocking-chair  and  rocks  and 

54 


MRS.   SMITH  GETS  ON  MY  NERVES 

rocks  until  I  feel  as  if  I  should  go  crazy !" 
some  one  says.  But  why  not  let  Mrs. 
So-and-so  rock .?  It  is  her  chair  while  she 
is  in  it,  and  her  rocking.  Why  need  it 
touch  us  at  all  ? 

*'But,"  I  hear  a  hundred  women  say, 
''it  gets  on  our  nerves;  how  can  we  help 
its  getting  on  our  nerves.^"  The  answer 
to  that  is:  "Drop  it  off  your  nerves."  I 
know  many  women  who  have  tried  it  and 
who  have  succeeded,  and  who  are  now 
profiting  by  the  relief.  Sometimes  the 
process  to  such  freedom  is  a  long  one; 
sometimes  it  is  a  short  one;  but,  either 
way,  the  very  effort  toward  it  brings 
nervous  strength,  as  well  as  strength  of 
character. 

Take  the  woman  who  rocks.  Practi- 
cally every  time  she  rocks  you  should 
relax,  actually  and  consciously  relax  your 
muscles  and  your  nerves.  The  woman 
who  rocks  need  not  know  you  are  relax- 

M 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

ing;  it  all  can  be  done  from  inside. 
Watch  and  you  will  find  your  muscles 
strained  and  tense  with  resistance  to  the 
rocking.  Go  to  work  practically  to  drop 
every  bit  of  strain  that  you  observe.  As 
you  drop  the  grossest  strain  it  will  make 
you  more  sensitive  to  the  finer  strain  and 
you  can  drop  that  —  and  it  is  even  possi- 
ple  that  you  may  seek  the  woman  who 
rocks,  in  order  to  practice  on  her  and  get 
free  from  the  habit  of  resisting  more 
quickly. 

This  seems  comical  —  almost  ridicu- 
lous —  to  think  of  seeking  an  annoyance 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  it ;  but,  after  laugh- 
ing at  it  first,  look  at  the  idea  seriously, 
and  you  will  see  it  is  common  sense. 
When  you  have  learned  to  relax  to  the 
woman  who  rocks  you  have  learned  to 
relax  to  other  similar  annoyances.  You 
have  been  working  on  a  principle  that 
applies   generally.      You    have    acquired 

56 


MRS.   SMITH  GETS  ON  MY  NERVES 

a  good  habit  which  can  never  really  fail 
you. 

If  my  friend  had  invited  Mrs.  Smith 
to  supper  and  served  baked  beans  for 
the  sake  of  relaxing  out  of  the  tension  of 
her  resistance  to  the  sugar,  then  she 
could  have  conquered  that  resistance. 
But  to  try  to  conquer  an  annoyance  like 
that  without  knowing  how  to  yield  in 
some  way  would  be,  so  far  as  I  know, 
an  impossibility.  Of  course,  we  would 
prefer  that  our  friends  should  not  have 
any  disagreeable,  ill-bred,  personal  ways, 
but  we  can  go  through  the  world  without 
resisting  them,  and  there  is  no  chance  of 
helping  any  one  out  of  them  through  our 
own  resistances. 

On  the  other  hand  a  way  may  open 
by  which  the  woman's  attention  is  called 
to  the  very  unhealthy  habit  of  rocking  — 
or  eating  sugar  on  beans  —  if  we  are 
ready,  without  resistance,  to  point  it  out 

57 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

to  her.  And  if  no  way  opens  we  have  at 
least  put  ourselves  out  of  bondage  to  her. 

The  second  way  in  which  other  people 
get  on  our  nerves  is  more  serious  and 
more  difficult.  Mrs.  So-and-so  may  be 
doing  very  wrong  —  really  very  wrong ; 
or  some  one  who  is  nearly  related  to  us 
may  be  doing  very  wrong  —  and  it  may 
be  our  most  earnest  and  sincere  desire 
to  set  him  right.  In  such  cases  the  strain 
is  more  intense  because  we  really  have 
right  on  our  side,  in  our  opinion,  if  not 
in  our  attitude  toward  the  other  person. 
Then,  to  recognize  that  if  some  one  else 
chooses  to  do  wrong  it  is  none  of  our 
business  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  things 
to  do  —  for  a  woman,  especially. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  recognize  prac- 
tically that,  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  our 
business,  we  can  best  put  ourselves  in 
a  position  to  enable  the  other  person  to 
see    his    own    mistake    by   dropping   all 

58 


MRS.   SMITH   GETS   ON  MY  NERVES 

personal  resistance  to  it  and  all  personal 
strain  about  it.  Even  a  mother  with  her 
son  can  help  him  to  be  a  man  much 
more  truly  if  she  stops  worrying  about 
and  resisting  his  unmanliness. 

"But,"  I  hear  some  one  say,  "that  all 
seems  like  such  cold  indifference."  Not 
at  all  —  not  at  all.  Such  freedom  from 
strain  can  be  found  only  through  a  more 
actively  affectionate  interest  in  others. 
The  more  we  truly  love  another,  the 
more  thoroughly  we  respect  that  other's 
individuality. 

The  other  so-called  love  is  only  love 
of  possession  and  love  of  having  our 
own  way.  It  is  not  really  love  at  all;  it 
is  sugar-coated  tyranny.  And  when  one 
sugar-coated  tyrant  antagonizes  herself 
against  another  sugar-coated  tyrant  the 
strain  is  severe  indeed,  and  nothing  good 
is  ever  accomplished. 

The    Roman   infantry    fought    with    a 

59 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

fixed  amount  of  space  about  each  soldier, 
and  found  that  the  greater  freedom  of 
individual  activity  enabled  them  to  fight 
better  and  to  conquer  their  foes.  This 
symbolizes  happily  the  process  of  getting 
people  off  our  nerves.  Let  us  give  each 
one  a  wide  margin  and  thus  preserve  a 
good  margin  for  ourselves. 

We  rub  up  against  other  people's 
nerves  by  getting  too  near  to  them  —  not 
too  near  to  their  real  selves,  but  too  near, 
so  to  speak,  to  their  nervous  systems. 
There  have  been  quarrels  between  good 
people  just  because  one  phase  of  nervous 
irritability  roused  another.  Let  things 
in  other  people  go  until  you  have  entirely 
dropped  your  strain  about  them  —  then  it 
will  be  clear  enough  what  to  do  and  what 
to  say,  or  what  not  to  do  and  what  not  to 
say.  People  in  the  world  cannot  get  on 
our  nerves  unless  we  allow  them  to  do  so. 


60 


Chapter  V 
The  Trying  Member  of  the  Family 

TOMMY,    don't    do    that.     You 
know   it    annoys    your    grand- 
father." 
''Well,    why  should   he    be    annoyed.? 
I  am  doing  nothing  wrong." 

"I  know  that,  and  it  hurts  me  to  ask 
you,  but  you  know  how  he  will  feel  if  he 
sees  you  doing  it,  and  you  know  that 
troubles  me." 

Reluctantly  and  sullenly  Tommy 
stopped.  Tommy's  mother  looked 
strained  and  worried  and  discontented. 
Tommy  had  an  expression  on  his  face 
akin  to  that  of  a  smouldering  volcano. 

If  any  one  had  taken  a  good  look  at 
the  grandfather  it  would  have  been  very 
clear  that  Tommy  was  his  own  grand- 

61 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

son,  and  that  the  old  man  and  the  child 
were  acting  and  reacting  upon  one  an- 
other in  a  way  that  was  harmful  to  both ; 
although  the  injury  was,  of  course,  worse 
to  the  child,  for  the  grandfather  had 
toughened.  The  grandfather  thought  he 
loved  his  little  grandson,  and  the  grand- 
son, at  times,  would  not  have  acknowl- 
edged that  he  did  not  love  his  grand- 
father. At  other  times,  with  childish 
frankness,  he  said  he  ''hated  him." 

But  the  worst  of  this  situation  was 
that  although  the  mother  loved  her  son, 
and  loved  her  father,  and  sincerely  thought 
that  she  was  the  family  peacemaker,  she 
was  all  the  time  fanning  the  antagonism. 

Here  is  a  contrast  to  this  little  story: 
An  old  uncle  came  into  the  family  of  his 
nephew  to  live,  late  in  life,  and  with  a 
record  behind  him  of  whims  and  crotch- 
ets in  the  extreme.  The  father  and 
mother    talked    it    over.      Uncle    James 

62 


TRYING  MEMBER   OF  THE  FAMILY 

must  come.     He  had  lost  all  his  money. 
There  was  no  one  else  to  look  after  him 
and  they  could  not  afford  to  support  him 
elsewhere   where   he   would   be   comfort- 
able.   They  took  it  into  account,  without 
offence,  that  it  was  probably  just  as  much 
a  cross  to  Uncle  James  to  come  as  it  was 
to  them  to  have  him.    They  took  no  pose 
of  magnanimity  such  as:    ''Of  course  we 
must  be  good  and  offer  Uncle  James  a 
home,"   and   "How  good  we  are  to  do 
it!"     Uncle  James  was  to  come  because 
it  was  the  only  thing  for  him  to  do.    The 
necessity  was  to  be  faced  and  fought  and 
conquered,    and   they   had   three   strong, 
self-willed  little  children  to  face  it  with 
them.     They  had   sense   enough   to   see 
that  if  faced   rightly  it   would   do   only 
good  to  the  children,  but  if  made  a  bur- 
den to  groan  over  it  would  make  their 
home   a   ''hornets'   nest."     They  agreed 
to    say    nothing    to    the    children    about 

63 


'        NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Uncle  James's  peculiarities,  but  to  await 
developments. 

Children  are  always  delighted  at  a  visit 
from  a  relative,  and  they  welcomed  their 
great-uncle  with  pleasure.  It  was  not 
three  days,  however,  before  every  one 
of  the  three  was  crying  with  dislike  and 
hurt  feelings  and  anger.  Then  was  the 
time  to  begin  the  campaign. 

The  mother,  with  a  happy  face,  called 
the  three  children  to  her,  and  said: 
"Now  listen,  children.  Do  you  suppose 
I  like  Uncle  James's  irritability  any 
better  than  you  do.^" 

''No,"  came  in  a  chorus;  ''we  don't 
see  how  you  stand  it.  Mother." 

Then  she  said:  "Now  look  here,  boys, 
do  you  suppose  that  Uncle  James  likes 
his  snapping  any  better  than  we  do.^" 

"If  he  does  not  like  it  whv  does  he  do 
it.P"   answered  the  boys. 

"I  cannot  tell  you  that;    that  is  his 

64 


TRYING  MEMBER  OF  THE   FAMILY 

business  and  not  yours  or  mine,"  said 
the  mother;  "but  I  can  prove  to  you 
that  he  does  not  Uke  it.  Bobby,  do  you 
remember  how  you  snapped  at  your 
brother  yesterday,  when  he  accidentally 
knocked  your  house  over?" 

"Yes!"  repHed  Bobby. 

"Did  you  feel  comfortable  after  it,?" 

"You  bet  I  did  n't,"  was  the  quick 
reply. 

"Well,"  answered  the  mother,  "you 
boys  stop  and  think  just  how  disagree- 
able it  is  inside  of  you  when  you  snap, 
and  then  think  how  it  would  be  if  you 
had  to  feel  like  that  as  much  as  Uncle 
James  does." 

"By  golly,  but  that  would  be  bad," 
said  the  twelve-year-old. 

"Now,  boys,"  went  on  the  mother, 
"you  want  to  relieve  Uncle  James's  dis- 
agreeable feelings  all  you  can,  and  don't 
you  see  that  you  increase  them  when  you 
6  65 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

do  things  to  annoy  him  ?  His  snappish 
feelings  are  just  like  a  sore  that  is  smart- 
ing and  aching  all  the  time,  and  when 
you  get  in  their  way  it  hurts  as  if  you 
rubbed  the  sore.  Keep  out  of  his  way 
when  you  can,  and  when  you  can't  and 
he  snaps  at  you,  say :  'I  beg  your  pardon, 
sir,'  like  gentlemen,  and  stop  doing  what 
annoys  him;  or  get  out  of  his  way  as 
soon  as  you  can." 

Uncle  James  never  became  less  snap- 
pish. But  the  upright,  manly  courtesy 
of  those  boys  toward  him  was  like  fresh 
air  on  a  mountain,  especially  because  it 
had  become  a  habit  and  was  all  as  a 
matter  of  course.  The  father  and  mother 
realized  that  Uncle  James  had,  uncon- 
sciously, made  men  of  their  boys  as  noth- 
ing else  in  the  world  could  have  done, 
and  had  trained  them  so  that  they  would 
grow  up  tolerant  and  courteous  toward 
all  human  peculiarities. 


TRYING  MEMBER  OP  THE  FAMILY 

Many     times      a      gracious      courtesy 
toward   the    *' trying   member"    will    dis- 
cover good  and  helpful  qualities  that  we 
had  not  guessed  before.    Sometimes  after 
a  Httle  honest   effort  we  find   that  it  is 
ourselves  who  have  been  the  trying  mem- 
bers, and  that  the  other  one  has  been  the 
member  tried.    Often  it  is  from  two  mem- 
bers of  the  family  that  the  trying  element 
comes.     Two  sisters  may  clash,  and  they 
will  generally  clash  because  they  are  un- 
like.    Suppose  one  sister  moves  and  lives 
in  big  swings,  and  the  other  in  minute 
details.     Of  course  when  these  extreme 
tendencies  are  accented  in  each  the  sel- 
fish temptation  is  for  the  larger  mind  to 
lapse  into  carelessness  of  details,  and  for 
the  smaller  mind  to  shrink  into  pettiness, 
and  as  this  process  continues  the  sisters 
get   more   and   more   intolerant   of  each 
other,    and    farther    and    farther    apart. 
But  if  the  sister  who  moves  in  the  big 

67 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

swings  will  learn  from  the  other  to  be 
careful  in  details,  and  if  the  smaller  mind 
will  allow  itself  to  be  enlarged  by  learn- 
ing from  the  habitually  broader  view  of 
the  other,  each  will  grow  in  proportion, 
and  two  women  who  began  life  as  ene- 
mies in  temperament  can  end  it  as  happy 
friends. 

There  are  similar  cases  of  brothers  who 
clash,  but  they  are  not  so  evident,  for 
when  men  do  not  agree  they  leave  one 
another  alone.  Women  do  not  seem  to 
be  able  to  do  that.  It  is  good  to  leave  one 
another  alone  when  there  is  the  clashing 
tendency,  but  it  is  better  to  conquer  the 
clashing  and  learn  to  agree. 

So  long  as  the  normal  course  of  my 
life  leads  me  to  live  with  some  one  who 
rubs  me  the  wrong  way  I  am  not  free 
until  I  have  learned  to  live  with  that 
some  one  in  quiet  content.  I  never  gain 
my    freedom    by    running    away.      The 

68 


TRYING  MEMBER   OF  THE   FAMILY 

bondage  is  in  me  always,  so  long  as  the 
other  person's  presence  can  rouse  it. 
The  only  way  is  to  fight  it  out  inside  of 
one's  self.  When  we  can  get  the  co-oper- 
ation of  the  other  so  much  the  better. 
But  no  one's  co-operation  is  necessary  for 
us  to  find  our  own  freedom,  and  with  it 
an  intelligent,  tolerant  kindliness. 

"Mother,  you  take  that  seat.  No,  not 
that  one.  Mother  —  the  sun  comes  in 
that  window.  Children,  move  aside  and 
let  your  grandmother  get  to  her  seat." 

The  young  woman  was  very  much  in 
earnest  in  seeing  that  her  mother  had  a 
comfortable  seat,  that  she  had  not  the 
discomfort  of  the  hot  sun,  that  the  children 
made  way  for  her  so  that  she  could  move 
into  her  seat  comfortably.  All  her  words 
were  thoughtful  and  courteous,  but  the 
spirit  and  the  tone  of  her  words  were 
quite  the  reverse  of  courteous.  If  some 
listener  with  his  eyes  shut  had  heard  the 

69 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

tone  without  understanding  the  words 
he  might  easily  have  thought  that  the 
woman  was  talking  to  a  little  dog. 

Poor  *' Mother"  trotted  into  her  seat 
with  the  air  of  a  little  dog  who  was  so 
well  trained  that  he  did  at  once  what 
his  mistress  ordered.  It  was  very  evi- 
dent that  ''Mother's"  will  had  been 
squeezed  out  of  her  and  trampled  upon 
for  years  by  her  dutiful  daughter,  who 
looked  out  always  that  "Mother"  had 
the  best,  without  the  first  scrap  of  respect 
for  "Mother's"  free,  human  soul. 

The  grandchildren  took  the  spirit  of 
their  mother's  words  rather  than  the 
words  themselves,  and  treated  their  grand- 
mother as  if  she  were  a  sort  of  traveling 
idiot  tagged  on  to  them,  to  whom  they 
had  to  be  decently  respectful  whenever 
their  mother's  eye  was  upon  them,  and 
whom  they  ignored  entirely  when  their 
mother  looked  the  other  way. 

70 


TRYING  MEMBER  OF  THE  FAMILY 

It  so  happened  that  I  was  sitting  next 
to  this  particular  mother  who  had  been 
poked  into  a  comfortable  seat  by  her 
careful  daughter.  And,  after  a  number 
of  other  suggestions  had  been  poked  at 
her  with  a  view  to  adding  to  her  comfort, 
she  turned  to  me  and  in  a  quaint,  confi- 
dential way,  with  the  gentle  voice  of  a 
habitual  martyr,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
twinkle  of  humor  in  her  eye,  she  said: 
*'They  think,  you  know,  I  don't  know 
anything." 

And  after  that  we  had  a  little  talk  about 
matters  of  the  day  which  proved  to  me 
that  "Mother"  had  a  mind  broader  and 
certainly  more  quiet  than  her  daughter. 
I  studied  the  daughter  with  interest  after 
knowing  "Mother"  better,  and  her  habit- 
ual strain  of  voice  and  manner  were 
pathetic.  By  making  a  care  of  her  mother 
instead  of  a  companion,  she  was  not  only 
guilty  of  disrespect  to  a  soul  which,  how- 

71 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

ever  weak  it  may  have  been  in  allowing 
itself  to  be  directed  in  all  minor  matters, 
had  its  own  firm  principles  which  were 
not  overridden  nor  even  disturbed  by  the 
daughter's  dominance.  If  the  daughter 
had  only  dropped  her  strain  of  care  and 
her  habit  of  ''bossing"  she  would  have 
found  a  true  companion  in  her  mother, 
and  would  have  been  a  healthier  and 
happier  woman  herself. 

In  pleasant  contrast  to  this  is  the  story 
of  a  family  which  had  an  old  father  who 
had  lost  his  mind  entirely,  and  had  grown 
decrepit  and  childish  in  the  extreme. 
The  sons  and  daughters  tended  him  like 
a  baby  and  loved  him  with  gentle,  tender 
respect.  There  was  no  embarrassment 
for  his  loss  of  mind,  no  thought  of  being 
distressed  or  pained  by  it,  and  because 
his  children  took  their  father's  state  so 
quietly  and  without  shame,  every  guest 
who  came  took  it  in  the  same  way,  and 


TRYING  MEMBER  OF  THE  FAMILY 

there  was  no  thought  of  keeping  the  father 
out  of  sight.  He  sat  in  the  Hving-room 
in  his  comfortable  chair,  and  always  one 
child  or  another  was  sitting  right  beside 
him  with  a  smiling  face.  Instead  of  be- 
ing a  trying  member  of  the  family,  as 
happens  in  so  many  cases,  this  old  father 
seemed  to  bring  content  and  rest  to  his 
children  through  their  loving  care  for 
him. 

Very  often  —  I  might  almost  say  always 
—  the  trying  member  of  the  family  is 
trying  only  because  we  make  her  so  by 
our  attitude  toward  her,  let  her  be  grand- 
mother, mother,  or  maiden  aunt.  Even 
the  proverbial  mother-in-law  grows  less 
difficult  as  our  attitude  toward  her  is 
relieved  of  the  strain  of  detesting  every- 
thing she  does,  and  expecting  to  detest 
everything  that  she  is  going  to  do.  With 
every  trying  friend  we  have,  if  we  yield 
to  him  in  all  minor  matters  we  find  the 

73 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

settling  of  essential  questions  wonderfully 
less  difficult. 

A  son  had  a  temper  and  the  girl  he 
married  had  a  temper.  The  mother 
loved  her  son  with  the  selfish  love  with 
which  so  many  mothers  burden  their 
children,  and  thought  that  he  alone  of 
all  men  had  a  right  to  lose  his  temper. 
Consequently  she  excused  her  son  and 
blamed  her  daughter-in-law.  If  there 
were  a  mild  cyclone  roused  between  the 
two  married  people  the  son  would  turn  to 
his  mother  to  hear  what  a  martyr  he  was 
and  what  misfortune  he  had  to  bear  in 
having  been  so  easily  mistaken  in  the 
woman  he  married.  Thus  the  mother- 
in-law,  who  felt  that  she  was  protecting 
her  poor  son,  was  really  breeding  dissen- 
sion between  two  people  who  could  have 
been  the  best  possible  friends  all  their 
lives. 

The    young    wife    very    soon    became 

74 


TRYING  MEMBER  OF  THE   FAMILY 

ashamed  of  her  temper  and  worked  until 
she  conquered  it,  but  it  was  not  until  her 
mother-in-law  had  been  out  of  this  world 
for  years  that  her  husband  discovered 
what  he  had  lost  in  turning  away  from 
his  wife's  friendship,  and  it  was  only  by 
the  happy  accident  of  severe  illness  that 
he  ever  discovered  his  mistake  at  all, 
and  gained  freedom  from  the  bondage  of 
his  own  temper  enough  to  appreciate  his 
wife. 

If,  however,  the  wife  had  yielded  in  the 
beginning  not  only  to  her  husband's  bad 
temper  but  also  to  the  antagonism  of  her 
mother-in-law,  which  was,  of  course, 
annoying  in  many  petty  ways,  she  might 
have  gained  her  husband's  friendship, 
and  it  is  possible  that  she  might,  more- 
over, have  gained  the  friendship  of  her 
mother-in-law. 

The  best  rule  with  regard  to  all  trying 
members  of  the  family  is  to  yield  to  them 

75 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

always  in  non-essentials;  and  when  you 
disagree  in  essentials  stick  to  the  prin- 
ciple which  you  believe  to  be  right,  but 
stick  to  it  without  resistance.  Believe 
your  way,  but  make  yourself  willing  that 
the  trying  member  should  believe  her 
way.  Make  an  opportunity  of  what  ap- 
pears to  be  a  limitation,  and,  believe  me, 
your  trying  member  can  become  a  blessing 
to  you. 

I  go  further  than  that  —  I  truly  be- 
lieve that  to  make  the  best  of  life  every 
family  should  have  a  trying  member. 
When  we  have  no  trying  member  of  our 
family,  and  life  goes  along  smoothly,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  the  harmony  is  very 
liable  to  be  spurious,  and  a  sudden  test 
will  all  at  once  knock  such  a  family  into 
discord,  much  to  the  surprise  of  every 
member.  When  we  go  through  discord 
to  harmony,  and  once  get  into  step,  we 
are  very  likely  to  keep  in  step. 

76 


TRYING  MEMBER  OF  THE  FAMILY 

Be  willing,  then,  make  yourself  willing, 
that  the  trying  member  should  be  in  the 
way.  Hope  that  she  will  stay  in  your 
family  until  you  have  succeeded  in  drop- 
ping not  only  all  resistance  to  her  being 
there,  but  every  resistance  to  her  various 
ways  in  detail.  Bring  her  annoying  ways 
up  to  your  mind  voluntarily  when  you 
are  away  from  her.  If  you  do  that  you 
will  find  all  the  resistances  come  with 
them  and  you  can  relax  out  of  the  strain 
then  and  there.  You  will  find  that  when 
you  get  home  or  come  down  to  break- 
fast in  the  morning  (for  many  resistances 
are  voluntarily  thrown  off  in  the  night) 
you  will  have  a  pleasanter  feeling  tow^ard 
the  trying  member,  and  it  comes  so 
spontaneously  that  you  will  be  surprised 
yourself  at  the  absence  of  the  strain  of 
resistance  in  you. 

Believe  me  when  I  say  this:  the  yield- 
ing   in     the     non-essentials,     singularly 

77 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

enough,  gives  one  strength  to  refuse  to 
yield  in  principles.  But  we  must  always 
remember  that  if  we  want  to  find  real 
peace,  while  we  refuse  to  yield  in  our  own 
principles  so  long  as  we  believe  them  to 
be  true,  we  must  be  entirely  willing  that 
others  should  differ  from  us  in  belief. 


78 


Chapter  VI 
Irritable  Husbands 

SUPPOSE  your  husband  got  im- 
patient and  annoyed  with  you  be- 
cause you  did  not  seem  to  enter 
heartily  into  the  interests  of  his  work  and 
sympathize  with  its  cares  and  responsi- 
bihties  and  soothe  him  out  of  the  nervous 
harassments.  Would  you  not  perhaps 
feel  a  little  sore  that  he  seemed  to  expect 
all  from  you  and  to  give  nothing  in  return  ? 
I  know  how  many  women  will  say  that  is 
all  very  well,  but  the  husband  and  father 
should  feel  as  much  interest  in  the  home 
and  the  children  as  the  wife  and  mother 
does.  That  is,  of  course,  true  up  to  a 
certain  point,  always  in  general,  and  when 
his  help  is  really  necessary  in  particular. 
But  a  man  cannot  enter  into  the  details 

79 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

of  his  wife's  duties  at  home  any  more  than 
a  woman  can  enter  into  the  details  of  her 
husband's  duties  at  his  office. 

Then,  again,  my  readers  may  say :  "But 
a  woman's  nervous  system  is  more  sensi- 
tive than  a  man's;  she  needs  help  and 
consolation.  She  needs  to  have  some  one 
on  whom  she  can  lean."  Now  the  answer 
to  that  will  probably  be  surprising,  but 
an  intelligent  understanding  and  com- 
prehension of  it  would  make  a  very  radical 
difference  in  the  lives  of  many  men  and 
women  who  have  agreed  to  live  together 
for  life  —  for  better  and  for  worse. 

Now  the  truth  is  man's  nervous  system 
is  quite  as  sensitive  as  a  woman's,  but 
the  woman's  temptation  to  emotion  makes 
her  appear  more  sensitive,  and  her  failure 
to  control  her  emotions  ultimately  in- 
creases the  sensitiveness  of  her  nerves  so 
that  they  are  more  abnormal  than  her 
husband's.    Even  that  is  not  always  true. 

80 


IRRITABLE  HUSBANDS 

The  other  day  a  woman  sat  in  tears  and 
distress  telling  of  the  hardness  of  heart, 
the  restlessness,  the  irritability,  the 
thoughtlessness,  the  unkindness  of  her 
husband.  Her  face  was  drawn  with 
suffering.  She  insisted  that  she  was  not 
complaining,  that  it  was  her  deep  and 
tender  love  for  her  husband  that  made 
her  suffer  so.  '*But  it  is  killing  me,  it  is 
killing  me,"  she  said,  and  one  who  saw 
her  could  well  believe  it.  And  if  the  dis- 
tress and  the  great  strain  upon  her 
nerves  had  kept  on  it  certainly  would 
have  made  her  ill,  if  not  have  actually 
ended  her  life  with  a  nervous  collapse. 

The  friend  in  whom  she  confided  sat 
quietly  and  heard  her  through.  She  let 
her  pour  herself  out  to  the  very  finish 
until  she  stopped  because  there  was 
nothing  more  to  say.  Then,  by  means  of 
a  series  of  gentle,  well-adapted  questions, 
she  drew  from  the  wife  a  recognition  — 
6  81 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

for  the  first  time  —  of  the  fact  that  she 
really  did  nothing  whatever  for  her  hus- 
band and  expected  him  to  do  everything 
for  her.  Perhaps  she  put  on  a  pretty  dress 
for  him  in  order  to  look  attractive  when 
he  came  home,  but  if  he  did  not  notice 
how  well  she  looked,  and  was  irritable 
about  something  in  the  house,  she  would 
be  dissolved  in  tears  because  she  had  not 
proved  attractive  and  pleased  him.  Maybe 
she  had  tried  to  have  a  dinner  that  he 
especially  liked ;  then  if  he  did  not  notice 
the  food,  and  seemed  distracted  about 
something  that  was  worrying  him,  she 
would  again  be  dissolved  in  tears  because 
he  ''appreciated  nothing  that  she  tried  to 
do  for  him." 

Now  it  is  perfectly  true  that  this  hus- 
band was  irritable  and  brutal;  he  had 
no  more  consideration  for  his  wife  than 
he  had  for  any  one  else.  But  his  wife  was 
doing  all  in  her  power  to  fan  his  irrita- 

82 


IRRITABLE  HUSBANDS 

bility  into  flame  and  to  increase  his 
brutality.  She  was  attitudinizing  in  her 
own  mind  as  a  martyr.  She  was  demand- 
ing kindness  and  attention  and  sympathy 
from  her  husband,  and  because  she 
demanded  it  she  never  got  it. 

A  woman  can  demand  without  de- 
manding imperiously.  There  is  more 
selfish  demanding  in  a  woman's  emotional 
suffering  because  her  husband  does  not 
do  this  or  that  or  the  other  for  her  sake 
than  there  is  in  a  tornado  of  man's  irrita- 
bility or  anger.  You  see,  a  woman's  de- 
manding spirit  is  covered  with  the  mush 
of  her  emotions.  A  man's  demanding 
spirit  stands  out  in  all  its  naked  ugliness. 
One  is  just  as  bad  as  the  other.  One  is 
just  as  repulsive  as  the  other. 

It  is  a  radical,  practical  impossibility 
to  bring  loving-kindness  out  of  any  one 
by  demanding  it.  Loving-kindness, 
though tfulness,  and    consideration    have 

83 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

got  to  be  born  spontaneously  in  a  man's 
own  mind  to  be  anything  at  all,  and  no 
amount  of  demanding  on  the  part  of  his 
wife  can  force  it. 

When  this  little  lady  of  whom  I  have 
been  writing  found  that  she  had  been 
demanding  from  her  husband  what  he 
really  ought  to  have  given  her  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  that  she  had  used  up  all 
her  strength  in  suffering  because  he  did 
not  give  it,  and  had  used  none  of  her 
strength  in  the  effort  to  be  patient  and 
quiet  in  waiting  for  him  to  come  to  his 
senses,  she  went  home  and  began  a  new 
life.  She  was  a  plucky  little  woman  and 
very  intelligent  when  once  her  eyes  were 
opened.  She  recognized  the  fact  that  her 
suffering  was  resistance  to  her  husband's 
irritable  selfishness,  and  she  stopped 
resisting. 

It  was  a  long  and  hard  struggle  of  days, 
weeks,  and  months,  but  it  brought  a  very 

84 


IRRITABLE  HUSBANDS 

happy  reward.  When  a  man  is  irritable 
and  ugly,  and  his  wife  offers  no  resistance 
either  in  anger  or  suffering,  the  irritability 
and  ugliness  react  upon  himself,  and  if 
there  is  something  better  in  him  he  begins 
to  perceive  the  irritability  in  its  true  colors. 
That  is  what  happened  to  this  man.  As 
his  wife  stopped  demanding  he  began  to 
give.  As  his  wife's  nerves  became  calm 
and  quiet  his  nerves  quieted  and  calmed. 
Finally  his  wife  discovered  that  much  of 
his  irritability  had  been  roused  through 
nervous  anxiety  in  regard  to  his  busi- 
ness about  which  he  had  told  her  noth- 
ing whatever  because  it  ''was  not  his 
way." 

There  is  nothing  in  the  world  that  so 
strengthens  nerves  as  the  steady  use  of  the 
will  to  drop  resistance  and  useless  emo- 
tions and  get  a  quiet  control.  This 
woman  gained  that  strength,  and  to  her 
surprise  one  day  her  husband  turned  to 

85 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

her  with  a  full  account  of  all  his  business 
troubles  and  she  met  his  mind  quietly,  as 
one  business  man  might  meet  another, 
and  without  in  the  least  expressing  her 
pleasure  or  her  surprise.  She  took  all 
the  good  change  in  him  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

Finally  one  day  it  came  naturally  and 
easily  to  talk  over  the  past.  She  found 
that  her  husband  from  day  to  day  had 
dreaded  coming  home.  The  truth  was 
that  he  had  dreaded  his  own  irritability 
as  much  as  he  had  dreaded  her  emotional 
demanding.  But  he  did  not  know  it  — 
he  did  not  know  what  was  the  matter  at 
all.  He  simply  knew  vaguely  that  he  was 
a  brute,  that  he  felt  like  a  brute,  and  that 
he  did  not  know  how  to  stop  being  a  brute. 
His  wife  knew  that  he  was  a  brute,  and 
at  the  same  time  she  felt  throughly  con- 
vinced that  she  was  a  suffering  martyr. 
He  was  dreading  to  come  home  and  she 

86 


IRRITABLE  HUSBANDS 

was  dreading  to  have  him  come  home  — 
and  there  they  were  in  a  continuous  night- 
mare. Now  they  have  left  the  nightmare 
far,  far  behind,  and  each  one  knows  that 
the  other  has  one  good  friend  in  the  world 
in  whom  he  or  she  can  feel  entire  con- 
fidence, and  their  friendship  is  growing 
stronger  and  clearer  and  more  normal 
every   day. 

It  is  not  the  ceremony  that  makes  the 
marriage:  the  ceremony  only  begins  it. 
Marriage  is  a  slow  and  careful  adjustment. 
A  true  story  which  illustrates  the  opposite 
of  this  condition  is  that  of  a  man  and 
woman  who  were  to  all  appearances 
happily  married  for  years.  They  were 
apparently  the  very  closest  friends.  The 
man's  nerves  were  excitable  and  peculiar, 
and  his  wife  adjusted  herself  to  them  by 
indulging  them  and  working  in  every 
way  to  save  him  from  friction.  No 
woman  could  stand  that  constant  work  of 

87 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

adjustment  which  was  in  reality  malad- 
justment, and  this  wife's  nerves  broke 
down  unexpectedly  and  completely. 

When  our  nerves  get  weak  we  are  un- 
able to  repress  resistance  which  in  a 
stronger  state  we  had  covered  up.  This 
wife,  while  she  had  indulged  and  pro- 
tected her  husband's  peculiarities,  had 
subconsciously  resisted  them.  When  she 
became  ill  her  subconscious  resistance 
came  to  the  surface.  She  surprised  her- 
self by  growing  impatient  with  her  hus- 
band. He,  of  course,  retorted.  As  she 
grew  worse  he  did  not  find  his  usual 
comfort  from  her  care,  and  instead  of 
trying  to  help  her  to  get  well  he  turned 
his  back  on  her  and  complained  to  another 
woman.  Finally  the  friction  of  the  two 
nervous  systems  became  dangerously  in- 
tense. Each  was  equally  obstinate,  and 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  separate- 
The  woman  died  of  a  broken  heart,  and 

88 


IRRITABLE  HUSBANDS 

the  man  is  probably  insane  for  the  rest  of 
his  life. 

It  was  nothing  but  the  mismanagement 
of  their  own  and  each  other's  nerves  that 
made  all  this  terrible  trouble.  Their  love 
seemed  genuine  at  first,  and  could  cer- 
tainly have  grown  to  be  really  genuine 
if  they  had  become  truly  adjusted.  And 
the  saddest  part  of  the  whole  story  is 
that  they  were  both  peculiarly  adapted 
to  be  of  use  to  their  fellow-men.  During 
the  first  years  of  their  life  their  home  was 
a  delight  to  all  their  friends. 

Tired  nerves  are  likely  to  close  up  a 
man  or  make  him  irritable,  complaining, 
and  ugly,  whereas  the  tendency  in  a 
woman  is  to  be  irritable,  complaining,  and 
tearful.  Now  of  course  when  each  one 
is  selfishly  looking  out  for  his  or  her 
comfort  neither  one  can  be  expected  to 
understand  the  other.  The  man  thinks 
he  is  entirely  justified  in  being  annoyed 

89 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

with  the  woman's  tearful,  irritable  com- 
plaints, and  so  he  is  —  in  a  way.  The 
woman  thinks  that  she  has  a  right  to 
suffer  because  of  her  husband's  irritable 
ugliness,  and  so  she  has  —  in  a  way.  But 
in  the  truest  way,  and  the  way  which 
appeals  to  every  one's  common  sense, 
neither  one  has  a  right  to  complain  of  the 
other,  and  each  one  by  right  should  have 
first  made  things  better  and  clearer  in 
himself  and  herself. 

Human  nature  is  not  so  bad  —  really  in 
its  essence  it  is  not  bad  at  all.  If  we  only 
give  the  other  man  a  real  chance.  It  is 
the  pushing  and  pulling  and  demanding 
of  one  human  being  toward  another  that 
smother  the  best  in  us,  and  make  life  a 
fearful  strain.  Of  course  there  is  a  healthy 
demanding  as  well  as  an  unhealthy 
demanding,  but,  so  far  as  I  know,  the 
healthy  demanding  can  come  only  when 
we  are  clear  of  personal  resistance  and 

90 


IRRITABLE  HUSBANDS 

can  demand  on  the  strength  of  a  true 
principle  and  without  selfish  emotion. 

There  is  a  kind  of  gentle,  motherly 
contempt  with  which  some  women  speak 
of  their  husbands,  which  must  get  on  a 
man's  nerves  very  painfully.  It  is  in- 
tensely and  most  acutely  annoying.  And 
yet  I  have  heard  good  women  speak  in 
that  way  over  and  over  again.  The  gen- 
tleness and  motherliness  are  of  course 
neither  of  them  real  in  such  cases.  The 
gentle,  motherly  tone  is  used  to  cover  up 
their  own  sense  of  superiority. 

**Poor  boy,  poor  boy,"  they  may  say; 
"a  man  is  really  like  a  child."  So  he  may 
be  —  so  he  often  is  childish,  and  some- 
times childish  in  the  extreme.  But  where 
could  you  find  greater  and  more  abject 
childishness  than  in  a  woman's  un- 
governed  emotions.^ 

A  woman  must  respect  the  manliness  of 
her  husband's  soul,  and  must  cling  to  her 

91 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

belief  in  its  living  existence  behind  any 
amount  of  selfish,  restless  irritability,  if 
she  is  going  to  find  a  friend  in  him  or  be 
a  friend  to  him.  She  must  also  know  that 
his  nervous  system  may  be  just  as  sensi- 
tive as  hers.  Sometimes  it  is  more  sensi- 
tive, and  should  be  accordingly  respected. 
Demand  nothing  and  expect  nothing,  but 
hold  him  to  his  best  in  your  mind  and 
wait. 

That  is  a  rule  that  would  work  wonder- 
fully if  every  woman  who  is  puzzled 
about  her  husband's  restlessness  and  lack 
of  interest  in  home  affairs  would  apply 
it  steadily  and  for  long  enough.  It  is 
impossible  to  manufacture  a  happy,  sym- 
pathetic married  life  artificially  —  im- 
possible !  But  as  each  one  looks  to  one's 
self  and  does  one's  part  fully,  and  then 
is  willing  to  wait  for  the  other,  the  happi- 
ness and  the  sympathy,  the  better  power 
for  work  and  the  joyful  ability  to  play 

92 


IRRITABLE   HUSBANDS 

come  —  they  do  come ;  they  are  real  and 
ahve  and  waiting  for  us  as  we  get  clear 
from  the  interferences. 

*'Why  does  n't  my  husband  Hke  to  stay 
with  me  when  he  comes  home  ?  Why 
can't  we  have  nice,  cozy  times  together?" 
a  wife  asks  with  sad  longing  in  her 
eyes. 

And  to  the  same  friend  the  husband 
(who  is,  by  the  way,  something  of  a  pig) 
says:  "I  should  be  glad  to  stay  wdth 
Nellie  often  in  the  evening,  but  she  will 
always  talk  about  her  worries,  and  she 
worries  about  the  family  in  a  way  that  is 
idiotic.  She  is  always  sure  that  George 
will  catch  the  measles  because  a  boy  in 
the  next  street  has  them,  and  she  is  always 
sure  that  our  children  do  not  have  the 
advantages  nor  the  good  manners  that 
other  children  have.  If  it  is  not  one 
thing  it  is  another  ;  whenever  we  are 
alone    there   is   something    to    complain 

93 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

of,  and  her  last  complaint  was  about 
her  own  selfishness."  Then  he  laughed 
at  what  he  considered  a  good  joke,  and 
in  five  minutes  had  forgotten  all  about 
her. 

This  wife,  in  a  weak,  selfish  little  way, 
was  trying  to  give  her  husband  her  con- 
fidence, and  her  complaint  about  her  own 
selfishness  was  genuine.  She  wanted  his 
help  to  get  out  of  it.  If  he  had  given  her 
just  a  little  gracious  attention  and  told 
her  how  impossible  it  was  really  to  discuss 
the  children  when  she  began  the  con- 
versation with  whining  complaint,  she 
would  have  allowed  herself  to  be  taught 
and  their  intercourse  would  have  im- 
proved. On  the  other  hand,  if  the  wife 
had  realized  that  her  husband  came 
home  from  the  cares  of  his  business  tired 
and  nervous,  and  if  she  had  talked  lightly 
and  easily  on  general  subjects  and  tried 
to  follow  his  interests,  when  his  nerves 

94 


IRRITABLE   HUSBANDS 

were  rested  and  quiet  she  might  have 
found  him  ready  and  able  to  give  her  a 
little  lift  with  regard  to  the  children. 

It  is  interesting  and  it  is  delightful  to 
see  how,  as  we  each  work  first  to  bear  our 
own  burdens,  we  not  only  find  ourselves 
ready  and  able  to  lighten  the  burdens 
of  others  but  find  others  who  are  helpful 
to  us. 

A  woman  who  finds  her  husband  *'so 
restless  and  irritable"  should  remember 
that  in  reality  a  man's  nervous  system  is 
just  as  sensitive  as  a  woman's,  and,  with 
a  steady  and  consistent  effort  to  bear  her 
own  burdens  and  to  work  out  her  own 
problems,  should  prepare  herself  to  lighten 
her  husband's  burdens  and  help  to  solve 
his  problems;  that  is  the  truest  way  of 
bringing  him  to  the  place  where  he  will 
be  glad  to  share  her  burdens  with  her  as 
well  as  his  own. 

But  we  want  to  remember  that  there  is 

95 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

a  radical  difference  between  indulging 
another's  selfishness,  and  waiting,  with 
patient  yielding,  for  him  to  discover  his 
selfishness  himself,  and  to  act  unselfishly 
from  his  own  free  will. 


96 


Chapter  VII 

Quiet  vs.  Chronic  Excitement 

SOME     women    live    in    a    chronic 
state    of    excitement    all   the    time 
and  they  do  not  find  it  out  until 
they  get  ill.     Even  then  they  do  not 
always   find   it   out,  and   then   they  get 
more  ill. 

It  is  really  much  the  same  with  ex- 
citable women  as  with  a  man  who  thinks 
he  muBt  always  keep  a  little  stimulant 
in  himself  in  order  to  keep  about  his  work. 
When  a  bad  habit  is  established  in  us 
we  feel  unnatural  if  we  give  the  habit  up 
for  a  moment  —  and  we  feel  natural 
when  we  are  in  it  —  but  it  is  poison  all 
the  same. 

If  a  woman  has  a  habit  of  constantly 
snuffling  or  clearing  her  throat,  or  rock- 
'^  97 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

ing  a  rocking  chair,  or  chattering  to  who- 
ever may  be  near  her  she  would  feel 
unnatural  and  weird  if  she  were  suddenly 
wrenched  out  of  any  of  these  things.  And 
yet  the  poisoning  process  goes  on  just  the 
same. 

When  it  seems  immaterial  to  us  that 
we  should  be  natural  we  are  in  a  pretty 
bad  way  and  the  worst  of  it  is  we  do  not 
know  it. 

I  once  took  a  friend  with  me  into  the 
country  who  was  one  of  those  women 
who  lived  on  excitement  in  every-day 
life.  When  she  dressed  in  the  morning 
she  dressed  in  excitement.  She  went 
down  to  breakfast  in  excitement.  She 
went  about  the  most  humdrum  every- 
day affairs  excited.  Every  event  in  life 
—  little  or  big  —  was  an  excitement  to 
her  —  and  she  went  to  bed  tired  out 
with  excitement  —  over  nothing. 

We    went    deep    in    the    woods    and 

98 


QUIET  vs.   CHRONIC  EXCITEMENT 

in  the  mountains,  full  of  great  powerful 
quiet. 

When  my  friend  first  got  there  she  was 
excited  about  her  arrival,  she  was  excited 
about  the  house  and  the  people  in  it,  but 
in  the  middle  of  the  night  she  jumped  up 
in  bed  with  a  groan  of  torture. 

I  thought  she  had  been  suddenly  taken 
ill  and  started  up  quickly  from  my  end 
of  the  room  to  see  what  was  the  trouble. 

*'Oh,  oh,"  she  groaned,  "the  quiet !  It 
is  so  quiet ! "  Her  brain  which  had  been 
in  a  whirl  of  petty  excitement  felt  keen 
pain  when  the  normal  quiet  touched  it. 

Fortunately  this  woman  had  common 
sense  and  I  could  gradually  explain  the 
truth  to  her,  and  she  acted  upon  it  and 
got  rested  and  strong  and  quiet. 

I  knew  another  woman  who  had  been 
wearing  shoes  that  were  too  tight  for  her 
and  that  pinched  her  toes  all  together. 

The  first  time  she  wore  shoes  that  gave 

99 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

her  feet  room  enough  the  muscles  of  her 
feet  hurt  her  so  that  she  could  hardly 
walk. 

Of  course,  having  been  cramped 
into  abnormal  contraction  the  process 
of  expanding  to  freedom  would  be 
painful. 

If  you  had  held  your  fist  clenched  tight 
for  years,  or  months,  or  even  weeks,  how 
it  would  hurt  to  open  it  so  that  you  could 
have  free  use  of  your  fingers. 

The  same  truth  holds  good  with  a  fist 
that  has  been  clenched,  a  foot  that  has 
been  pinched,  or  a  brain  that  has  been 
contracted  with  excitement. 

The  process  leading  from  the  abnor- 
mal to  the  normal  is  always  a  painful 
one.  To  stay  in  the  abnormal  means 
blindness,  constantly  limiting  power  and 
death. 

To  come  out  into  a  normal  atmosphere 
and  into  a  normal  way  of  living  means 

100 


QUIET  vs.   CHRONIC  EXCITEMENT 

clearer  sight,  constantly  increasing  power, 
and  fresh  Hfe. 

This  habit  of  excitement  is  not  only 
contracting  to  the  brain;  it  has  its  effect 
over  the  whole  body.  If  there  is  any 
organ  that  is  weaker  than  any  other  the 
excitement  eventually  shows  itself.  A 
woman  may  be  suffering  from  indiges- 
tion, or  she  may  be  running  up  large 
doctor's  bills  because  of  either  one  of  a 
dozen  other  organic  disturbances,  with 
no  suspicion  that  the  cause  of  the  whole 
trouble  is  that  the  noisy,  excited,  strained 
habits  of  her  life  have  robbed  her  body  of 
the  vitality  it  needed  to  keep  it  in  good 
running  order. 

As  if  an  engineer  threw  his  coal  all 
over  the  road  and  having  no  fuel  for 
his  engine  wondered  that  it  would  not 
run.  Stupid  women  we  are  —  most  of 
us! 

The  trouble  is  that  many  of  us  are  so 

101 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

deeply  immersed  in  the  habit  of  excite- 
ment that  we  do  not  know  it. 

It  is  a  healthy  thing  to  test  ourselves  and 
to  really  try  to  find  ourselves  out.  It  is 
not  only  healthy ;   it  is  deeply  interesting. 

If  quiet  of  the  woods,  or  any  other 
quiet  place,  makes  us  fidgety,  we  may  be 
sure  that  our  own  state  is  abnormal  and 
we  had  better  go  into  the  woods  as  often 
as  possible  until  we  feel  ourselves  to  be 
a  part  of  the  quiet  there. 

If  we  go  into  the  woods  and  get  soothed 
and  quieted  and  then  come  out  and  get 
fussed  up  and  excited  so  that  we  feel 
painfully  the  contrast  between  the  quiet 
and  our  every-day  life,  then  we  can  know 
that  we  are  living  in  the  habit  of  abnor- 
mal excitement  and  we  can  set  to  work 
to  stop  it. 

"That  is  all  very  well,"  I  hear  my 
readers  say,  ''but  how  are  you  going  to 
stop  living  in  abnormal  excitement  when 

102 


QUIET  vs.   CHRONIC  EXCITEMENT 

every  circumstance  and  every  person 
about  you  is  full  of  it  and  knows  noth- 
ing else?" 

If  you  really  want  to  do  it  and  would 
feel  interested  to  make  persistent  effort 
I  can  give  you  the  recipe  and  I  can  prom- 
ise any  woman  that  if  she  perseveres  until 
she  has  found  the  way  she  will  never 
cease  to  be  grateful. 

If  you  start  with  the  intention  of  tak- 
ing the  five  minutes'  search  for  quiet 
every  day,  do  not  let  your  intention  be 
weakened  or  yourself  discouraged  if  for 
some  days  you  see  no  result  at  all. 

At  first  it  may  be  that  whatever  quiet 
you  find  will  seem  so  strange  that  it  will 
annoy  you  or  make  you  very  nervous, 
but  if  you  persist  and  work  right  through, 
the  reward  will  be  worth  the  pains  many 
times  over. 

Sometimes  quieting  our  minds  helps  us 
to  quiet  our  bodies;   sometimes  we  must 

103 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

quiet  our  bodies  first  before  we  can  find 
the  way  to  a  really  quiet  mind.  The  at- 
tention of  the  mind  to  quiet  the  body,  of 
course,  reacts  back  on  to  the  mind,  and 
from  there  we  can  pass  on  to  thinking 
quietly.  Each  individual  must  judge  for 
herself  as  to  the  best  way  of  reaching  the 
quiet.  I  will  give  several  recipes  and  you 
can  take  your  choice. 

First,  to  quiet  the  body :  — 

1.  Lie  still  and  see  how  quietly  you  can 
breathe. 

2.  Sit  still  and  let  your  head  droop 
very  slowly  forward  until  finally  it  hangs 
down  with  its  whole  weight.  Then  lift 
it  up  very,  very  slowly  and  feel  as  if  you 
pushed  it  all  the  way  up  from  the  lower 
part  of  your  spine,  or,  better  still,  as  if 
it  grew  up,  so  that  you  feel-  the  slow, 
creeping,  soothing  motion  all  the  way  up 
your  spine  while  your  head  is  coming  up, 
and  do  not  let  your  head  come  to  an  en- 

104 


QUIET  vs.   CHRONIC  EXCITEMENT 

tirely  erect  position  until  your  chest  is 
as  high  as  you  can  hold  it  comfortably. 

When  your  head  is  erect  take  a  long, 
quiet  breath  and  drop  it  again.  You 
can  probably  drop  it  and  raise  it  twice 
in  the  five  minutes.  Later  on  it  should 
take  the  whole  five  minutes  to  drop  it  and 
raise  it  once  and  an  extra  two  minutes 
for  the  long  breath. 

When  you  have  dropped  your  head  as 
far  as  you  can,  pause  for  a  full  minute 
without  moving  at  all  and  feel  heavy; 
then  begin  at  the  lower  part  of  your  spine 
and  very  slowly  start  to  raise  it.  Be 
careful  not  to  hold  your  breath,  and 
watch  to  breathe  as  easily  and  quietly 
as  you  can  while  your  head  is  moving. 

If  this  exercise  hurts  the  back  of  your 
neck  or  any  part  of  your  spine,  don't  be 
troubled  by  it,  but  go  right  ahead  and 
you  will  soon  come  to  where  it  not  only 
does  not  hurt,  but  is  very  restful. 

105 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

When  you  have  reached  an  erect  posi- 
tion again  stay  there  quietly  —  first  take 
long  gentle  breaths  and  let  them  get 
shorter  and  shorter  until  they  are  a  good 
natural  length,  then  forget  your  breath- 
ing altogether  and  sit  still  as  if  you  never 
had  moved,  you  never  were  going  to  move, 
and  you  never  wanted  to  move. 

This  emphasizes  the  good  natural  quiet 
in  your  brain  and  so  makes  you  more 
sensitive  to  unquiet. 

Gradually  you  will  get  the  habit  of 
catching  yourself  in  states  of  unneces- 
sary excitement;  at  such  times  you  can- 
not go  off  by  yourself  and  go  through  the 
exercises.  You  cannot  even  stop  where 
you  are  and  go  through  them,  but  you 
can  recall  the  impression  made  on  your 
brain  at  the  time  you  did  them  and  in 
that  way  rule  out  your  excitement  and 
gain  the  real  power  that  should  be  in  its 
place. 

106 


QUIET  vs.   CHRONIC  EXCITEMENT 

So  little  by  little  the  state  of  excite- 
ment becomes  as  unpleasant  as  a  cloud 
of  dust  on  a  windy  day  and  the  quiet  is 
as  pleasant  as  under  the  trees  on  top  of 
a  hill  in  the  best  kind  of  a  June  day. 

The  trouble  is  so  many  of  us  live  in  a 
cloud  of  dust  that  we  do  not  suspect  even 
the  existence  of  the  June  day,  but  if  we 
are  fortunate  enough  once  or  twice  even 
to  get  to  sneezing  from  the  dust,  and  so 
to  recognize  its  unpleasantness,  then  we 
want  to  look  carefully  to  see  if  there  is 
not  a  way  out  of  it. 

It  is  then  that  we  can  get  the  beginning 
of  the  real  quiet  which  is  the  normal 
atmosphere  of  every  human  being. 

But  we  must  persist  for  a  long  time 
before  we  can  feel  established  in  the  quiet 
itself.  What  is  worth  having  is  worth 
working  for  —  and  the  more  it  is  worth 
having,  the  harder  work  is  required  to 
get  it. 

107 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

Nerves  form  habits,  and  our  nerves 
not  only  get  the  habit  of  living  in  the 
dust,  but^the  nerves  of  all  about  us  have 
the  same  habit.  So  that  when  at  first  we 
begin  to  get  into  clear  air,  we  may  almost 
dislike  it,  and  rush  back  into  the  dust 
again,  because  we  and  our  friends  are 
accustomed  to  it. 

All  that  bad  habit  has  to  be  fought,  and 
conquered,  and  there  are  many  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  persistence,  but  the 
reward  is  worth  it  all,  as  I  hope  to  show 
in  later  articles. 

I  remember  once  walking  in  a  crowded 
street  where  the  people  were  hurrying 
and  rushing,  where  every  one's  face  was 
drawn  and  knotted,  and  nobody  seemed 
to  be  having  a  good  time.  Suddenly  and 
unexpectedly  I  saw  a  man  coming  toward 
me  with  a  face  so  quiet  that  it  showed 
out  like  a  little  bit  of  calm  in  a  tornado. 

He  looked  like  a  common,  every-day 

108 


QUIET  vs.   CHRONIC  EXCITEMENT 

man  of  the  world,  so  far  as  his  dress  and 
general  bearing  went,  and  his  features 
were  not  at  all  unusual,  but  his  expres- 
sion was  so  full  of  quiet  interest  as  to  be 
the  greatest  contrast  to  those  about  him. 
He  was  not  thinking  his  own  thoughts 
either  —  he  was  one  of  the  crowd  and  a 
busy,  interested  observer. 

He  might  have  said,  "You  silly  geese, 
what  are  you  making  all  this  fuss  about, 
you  can  do  it  much  better  if  you  will  go 
more  easily."  If  that  was  his  thought  it 
came  from  a  very  kindly  sense  of  humor, 
and  he  gave  me  a  new  realization  of  what 
it  meant,  practically,  to  be  in  the  world 
and  not  of  it. 

If  you  are  in  the  world  you  can  live, 
and  observe,  and  take  a  much  better  part 
in  its  workings.  If  you  are  of  it,  you  are 
simply  whirled  in  an  eddy  of  dust,  how- 
ever you  may  pose  to  yourself  or  to  others. 


109 


Chapter  VIII 
The  Tired  Emphasis 

"  X"  AM  so  tired,  so  tired  —  I  go  to  bed 

I  tired,  I  get  up  tired,  and  I  am  tired 
all  the  time." 

How  many  women  —  how  many  hun- 
dred women,  how  many  thousand  women 
—  say  that  to  themselves  and  to  others 
constantly. 

It  is  perfectly  true;  they  are  tired  all 
the  time;  they  do  go  to  bed  tired  and 
get  up  tired  and  stay  tired  all  day. 

If,  however,  they  could  only  know  how 
very  much  they  increase  their  fatigue  by 
their  constant  mental  emphasis  of  it,  and 
if  at  the  same  time  they  could  turn  their 
wills  in  the  direction  of  decreasing  the 
fatigue,  instead  of  emphasizing  it,  a  very 

110 


THE  TIRED   EMPHASIS 

arge  percentage  of  the  tired  feeling  could 
be  done  away  with  altogether. 

Many  women  would  gladly  make  more 
of  an  effort  in  the  direction  of  rest  if  they 
knew  how,  and  I  propose  in  this  article 
to  give  a  prescription  for  the  cure  of  the 
tired  emphasis  which,  if  followed,  will 
bring  happy  results. 

When  you  go  to  bed  at  night,  no  mat- 
ter how  tired  you  feel,  instead  of  thinking 
how  tired  you  are,  think  how  good  it  is 
that  you  can  go  to  bed  to  get  rested. 

It  will  probably  seem  absurd  to  you 
at  first.  You  may  say  to  yourself:  "How 
ridiculous,  going  to  bed  to  get  rested, 
when  I  have  only  one  short  night  to  rest 
in,  and  one  or  two  weeks  in  bed  would 
not  rest  me  thoroughly." 

The  answer  to  that  is  that  if  you  have 
only  one  night  in  which  to  rest,  you  want 
to  make  the  most  of  that  night,  and  if 
you  carry  the  tired  emphasis  to  bed  with 

111 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

you  you  are  really  holding  on  to  the 
tired. 

This  is  as  practically  true  as  if  you 
stepped  into  a  bog  and  then  sat  in  it  and 
looked  forlorn  and  said:  '*What  a  ter- 
rible thing  it  is  that  I  should  be  in  a  bog 
like  this ;  just  think  of  having  to  sit  in  a 
black,  muddy  bog  all  the  time,"  and 
staying  there  you  made  no  effort  what- 
ever to  get  out  of  it,  even  though  there 
was  dry  land  right  in  front  of  you. 

Again  you  may  answer:  ''But  in  my 
tired  bog  there  is  no  dry  land  in  front  of 
me,  none  at  all." 

I  say  to  that,  there  is  much  more  dry 
land  than  you  think  —  if  you  will  open 
your  eyes  —  and  to  open  your  eyes  you 
must  make  an  effort. 

No  one  knows,  who  has  not  tried, 
what  a  good  strong  effort  will  do  in  the 
right  direction,  when  we  have  been  living 
and  slipping  back  in  the  wrong  direction, 

112 


THE  TIRED   EMPHASIS 

The  results  of  such  efforts  seem  at 
times  wonderful  to  those  who  have  learned 
the  right  direction  for  the  first  time. 

To  get  rid  of  the  tired  emphasis  when 
we  have  been  fixed  in  it,  a  very  strong 
effort  is  necessary  at  first,  and  gradually 
it  gets  easier,  and  easier,  until  we  have 
cast  off  the  tired  emphasis  entirely  and 
have  the  habit  of  looking  toward  rest. 

We  must  say  to  ourselves  with  de- 
cision in  so  many  words,  and  must  think 
the  meaning  of  the  words  and  insist 
upon  it:  ''I  am  very  tired.  Yes,  of 
course,  I  am  very  tired,  but  I  am  going 
to  bed  to  get  rested." 

There  are  a  hundred  little  individual 
ways  that  we  can  talk  to  ourselves,  and 
turn  ourselves  toward  rest,  at  the  end 
of  the  day  when  the  time  comes  to  rest. 

One  way  to  begin,  which  is  necessary  to 
most  of  us,  is  to  stop  resisting  the  tired. 

Every  complaint  of  fatigue,  whether 
8  113 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

it  is  merely  in  our  own  minds,  or  is  made 
to  others,  is  full  of  resistance,  and  resist- 
ance to  any  sort  of  fatigue  emphasizes  it 
proportionately. 

That  is  why  it  is  good  to  say  to  our- 
selves: "Yes,  I  am  tired;  I  am  awfully 
tired.     I  am  willing  to  be  tired." 

When  we  have  used  our  wills  to  drop 
the  nervous  and  muscular  contractions 
that  the  fatigue  has  caused,  we  can  add 
with  more  emphasis  and  more  meaning, 
''and  I  am  going  to  bed  to  get  rested." 

Some  one  could  say  just  here:  ''That 
is  all  very  well  for  an  ordinarily  tired 
person,  but  it  would  never  do  me  any 
good.    I  am  too  tired  even  to  try  it." 

The  answer  to  that  is,  the  more  tired 
you  are,  the  more  you  need  to  try  it,  and 
the  more  interesting  the  experiment  will 
be. 

Also  the  very  effort  of  your  brain 
needed  to  cast  off  the  tired  emphasis  will 

114 


THE  TIRED  EMPHASIS 

be  new  to  you,  and  thought  in  a  new 
direction  is  always  restful  in  itself. 

Having  learned  to  cast  off  the  tired 
emphasis  when  we  go  to  bed  at  night,  we 
can  gradually  learn  to  cast  it  off  before 
we  go  to  meals,  and  at  odd  opportunities 
throughout  the  day. 

The  more  tired  we  are,  the  more  we 
need  to  minimize  our  fatigue  by  the  in- 
telligent use  of  our  own  wills. 

Who  cares  for  a  game  that  is  simple 
and  easy.?  Who  cares  for  a  game  when 
you  beat  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  with- 
out any  effort  on  your  part  at  all  ? 

Whoever  cares  for  games  at  all  cares 
most  for  good,  stiff  ones,  where,  when 
you  have  beaten,  you  can  feel  that  you 
have  really  accomplished  something ;  and 
when  you  have  not  beaten,  you  have  at 
least  learned  points  that  will  enable  you 
to  beat  the  next  time,  or  the  next  to  the 
next  time  —  or   sometime.     And   every- 

115 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

one  who  really  loves  a  game  wants  to 
stick  to  it  until  he  has  conquered  and  is 
proficient. 

Why  not  wake  up,  and  realize  that 
same  interest  and  courage  in  this  biggest 
game  of  all  —  this  game  of  life  ? 

We  must  play  it ! 

Few  of  us  are  cowards  enough  to  put 
ourselves  out  of  it.  Unless  we  play  it 
and  obey  the  rules  we  do  not  really  play 
at  all. 

Many  of  us  do  not  know  the  rules,  but 
it  is  our  place  to  look  about  and  find 
them  out. 

Many  more  of  us  think  that  we  can 
play  the  game  better  if  we  make  up 
rules  of  our  own,  and  leave  out  whatever 
regular  rules  we  do  know,  that  do  not  suit 
our  convenience. 

But  that  never  works. 

It  only  sometimes  seems  to  work;  and 
although  plain  common  sense  shows  us 

116 


THE  TIRED   EMPHASIS 

over  and  over  that  the  game  played  ac- 
cording to  our  own  ideas  amounts  to 
nothing,  it  is  strange  to  see  how  many 
work  and  push  to  play  the  game  in  their 
own  way  instead  of  in  the  game's  way. 

It  is  strange  to  see  how  many  shove 
blindly  in  this  direction,  and  that  direc- 
tion, to  cut  their  way  through  a  jungle, 
when  there  is  the  path  just  by  them,  if 
they  will  take  it. 

Most  of  us  do  not  know  our  own  power 
because  we  would  rather  stay  in  a  ditch 
and  complain. 

Strength  begets  strength,  and  we  can 
only  find  our  greater  power,  by  using 
intelligently,  and  steadily,  the  power  we 
have. 


117 


I 


Chapter  IX 

How  to  he  III  and  get  Well 

LLNESS  seems  to  be  one  of  the  hard- 
est things  to  happen  to  a  busy  woman. 
Especially  hard  is  it  when  a  woman 
must  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  so 
much  illness  means,  almost  literally,  so 
much  less  food. 

Sometimes  one  is  taken  so  suddenly 
and  seriously  ill  that  it  is  impossible  to 
think  of  whether  one  has  food  and  shelter 
or  not;  one  must  just  be  taken  care  of 
or  die.  It  does  not  seem  to  matter  which 
at  the  time. 

Then  another  must  meet  the  difficulty. 

It  is   the  little  nagging  illnesses   that 

make  the  trouble  —  just  enough  to  keep 

a  woman  at  home  a  week  or  ten  days 

or  more,  and  deprive  her  of  wages  which 

118 


HOW  TO  BE  ILL  AND   GET  WELL 

she  might  have  been  receiving,  and  which 
she  very  much  needs. 

These  are  the  illnesses  that  are  hard 
to  bear. 

Many  a  woman  has  suffered  through 
an  illness  like  this,  which  has  dragged  out 
from  day  to  day,  and  finally  left  her  pale 
and  weak,  to  return  to  her  work  with 
much  less  strength  than  she  needs  for 
what  is  before  her. 

After  forcing  herself  to  work  day  after 
day,  her  strength  comes  back  so  slowly, 
that  she  appears  to  go  through  another 
illness,  on  her  feet,  and  "in  the  harness," 
before  she  can  really  call  herself  well 
again. 

There  are  a  few  clear  points  which, 
if  intelligently  comprehended,  could  teach 
one  how  to  meet  an  illness,  and  if  per- 
sistently acted  upon,  would  not  only 
shorten  it,  but  would  lighten  the  con- 
valescence so  that  when  the  invalid  re- 

119 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

turned  to  her  work  she  would  feel  stronger 
than  before  she  was  taken  ill. 

When  one  is  taken  with  a  petty  ill- 
ness, if  it  is  met  in  an  intelligent  way, 
the  result  can  be  a  good  rest,  and  one 
feels  much  better,  and  has  a  more  healthy 
appearance,  than  before  the  attack. 

This  effect  has  been  so  often  experi- 
enced that  with  some  people  there  is  a 
little  bit  of  pleasantry  passed  on  meeting 
a  friend,  in  the  remark:  '*Why,  how  do 
you  do ;  how  well  you  look  —  you  must 
have  been  ill !" 

If  we  remember  when  we  are  taken 
ill  that  nature  always  tends  towards 
health,  we  will  study  carefully  to  fulfill 
nature's  conditions  in  order  to  cure  the 
disease. 

We  will  rest  quietly,  until  nature  in  her 
process  toward  health  has  reached  health. 

In  that  way  our  illness  can  be  the 
means   of   giving   us   a   good   rest,    and, 

no 


HOW  TO  BE  ILL  AND  GET  WELL 

while  we  may  feel  the  loss  of  the  energy 
of  which  the  disease  has  robbed  us,  we 
also  feel  the  good  effects  of  the  rest  which 
we  have  given  to  organs  which  were  only 
tired. 

These  organs  which  have  gained  rest 
can,  in  their  turn,  help  toward  renew- 
ing the  strength  of  the  organs  which  had 
been  out  of  order,  and  thus  we  get  up 
from  an  illness  looking  so  well,  and  feel- 
ing so  well,  that  we  do  not  regret  the  loss 
of  time,  and  feel  ready  to  work,  and  to 
gradually  make  up  the  loss  of  money. 

Of  course,  the  question  is,  how  to  fulfill 
the  conditions  so  that  this  happy  result 
can  be  attained. 

In  the  first  place,  do  not  fret 

*'But  how  can  I  help  fretting.?"  some- 
one will  say,  "when  I  am  losing  money 
every  day,  and  do  not  know  how  many 
more  days  I  may  be  laid  up.?" 

The  answer  to  that  is:    "If  you  will 

121 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

think  of  the  coininon  sense  of  it,  you 
can  easily  see  that  the  strain  of  fretting 
is  interfering  radically  with  your  getting 
well.  For  when  you  are  using  up  strength 
to  fret,  you  are  simply  robbing  yourself 
of  the  vitality  which  would  be  used 
directly  in  the  cure  of  your  illness." 

Not  only  that,  but  the  strain  of  fretting 
increases  the  strain  of  illness,  and  is  not 
only  preventing  you  from  getting  well, 
but  it  is  tending  to  keep  you  ill. 

When  we  realize  that  fact,  it  seems 
as  if  it  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  stop 
fretting  in  order  to  get  well. 

It  is  as  senseless  to  fret  about  an  ill- 
ness, no  matter  how  much  just  cause  we 
may  feel  we  have,  as  it  would  be  to  walk 
west  when  our  destination  was  directly 
east. 

Stop  and  think  of  it.    Is  not  that  true  ? 

Imagine  a  child  with  a  pin  pricking 
him,  kicking,  and  screaming,  and  squirm- 

122 


HOW  TO   BE   ILL  AND   GET  WELL 

ing  with  the  pain,  so  that  his  mother  — 
try  as  carefully  as  she  may  —  takes  five 
minutes  to  find  the  pin  and  get  it  out, 
when  she  might  have  done  it  and  relieved 
him  in  five  seconds,  if  only  the  child  had 
kept  still  and  let  her. 

So  it  is  with  us  when  Mother  Nature 
is  working  with  wise  steadiness  to  find 
the  pin  that  is  making  us  ill,  and  to  get 
it  out.  We  fret  and  worry  so  that  it 
"takes  her  ten  or  twenty  days  to  do  the 
good  work  that  she  might  have  done  in 
three. 

In  order  to  drop  the  fretting,  we  must 
use  our  wills  to  think,  and  feel,  and  act, 
so  that  the  way  may  be  opened  for  health 
to  come  to  us  in  the  quickest  possible 
time. 

Every  contraction  of  worry  which  ap- 
pears in  the  muscles  we  must  drop,  so 
that  we  lie  still  with  a  sense  of  resting, 
and  waiting  for  the  healing  power,  which 

123 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

is  surely  working  within  us,  to  make  us 
well. 

We  can  do  this  by  a  deliberate  use  of 
our  wills. 

If  we  could  take  our  choice  between 
medicine,  and  the  curative  power  of 
dropping  anxiety  and  letting  ourselves 
get  well,  there  would  be  no  hesitancy, 
provided  we  understood  the  alternatives. 

I  speak  of  fretting  first  because  it  is 
so  often  the  strongest  interference  with 
health. 

Defective  circulation  is  the  trouble  in 
most  diseases,  and  we  should  do  all  we 
can  to  open  the  channels  so  that  the 
circulation,  being  free  elsewhere,  can 
tend  to  open  the  way  to  greater  free- 
dom in  the  part  diseased.  The  con- 
tractions caused  by  fretting  impede  the 
circulation  still  more,  and  therefore 
heighten  the   disease. 

If  once,  by  a  strong  use  of  the  will, 


HOW  TO  BE  ILL  AND   GET  WELL 

we  drop  the  fretting  and  give  ourselves 
up  entirely  to  letting  nature  cure  us, 
then  we  can  study,  with  interest,  to  ful- 
fill other  necessary  conditions.  We  can 
give  ourselves  the  right  amount  of  fresh 
air,  of  nourishment,  of  bathing,  and  the 
right  sort  of  medicine,  if  any  is  needed. 

Thus,  instead  of  interfering  with  na- 
ture, we  are  doing  all  in  our  power  to 
aid  her;  and  when  nature  and  the  in- 
valid work  in  harmony,  health  comes  on 
apace. 

When  illness  brings  much  pain  and 
discomfort  with  it,  the  endeavor  to  relax 
out  of  the  contractions  caused  by  the  pain, 
are  of  the  same  service  as  dropping  con- 
tractions caused  by  the  fretting. 

If  one  can  find  a  truly  wise  doctor, 
or  nurse,  in  such  an  illness  as  I  refer  to, 
get  full  instructions  in  just  one  visit,  and 
then  follow  those  directions  explicitly, 
only  one  visit  will  be  needed,  probably, 

125 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

and  the  gain  from  that  will  pay  for  it 
many  times  over. 

This  article  is  addressed  especially  to 
those  who  are  now  in  health. 

It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  expect  one 
in  the  midst  of  an  illness  to  start  at  once 
with  what  we  may  call  the  curative  atti- 
tude, although  it  could  be  done,  but  if 
those  who  are  now  well  and  strong  will 
read  and  get  a  good  understanding  of 
this  healthy  way  of  facing  an  illness, 
and  get  it  into  their  subconscious  minds, 
they  will  find  that  if  at  any  time  they 
should  be  unfortunate  enough  to  be  at- 
tacked with  illness,  they  can  use  the 
knowledge  to  very  real  advantage,  and 
—  what  is  more  —  they  can,  with  the 
right  tact,  help  others  to  use  it  also. 

To  see  the  common  sense  of  a  process 
and,  when  we  have  not  the  opportunity 
to  use  the  laws  ourselves,  to  help  others 
by   means    of   our  knowledge,  impresses 

126 


HOW  TO   BE  ILL  AND   GET  WELL 

our  own  brains  more  thoroughly  with 
the  truth,  especially  if  our  advice  is  taken 
and  acted  upon  and  thus  proved  to  be 
true. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
to  help  another  man  or  woman  to  a 
healthy  process  of  getting  well  requires 
gentle  patience  and  quiet,  steady,  un- 
remitting tact. 


127 


A 


CHAPTER  X 

Is  Physical  Culture  good  for  Girls? 

NUMBER  of  women  were  watch- 
ing a  game  of  basket-ball  played 
by  some  high-school  girls.  In 
the  interim  for  rest  one  woman  said  to 
her  neighbor:  "Do  you  see  that  girl  flat 
on  her  back,  looking  like  a  very  heavy  bag 
of  sand?" 

"Yes,"  the  answer  was;  "what  under 
the  sun  is  she  doing  that  for  ?  She  looks 
heavy  and  lazy  and  logy,  while  the  other 
girls  are  talking  and  laughing  and  having 
a  good  time." 

"You  wait  and  watch  her  play,"  re- 
sponded the  first  woman.  And  so  they 
waited  and  watched,  and  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  friend  the  girl  who  had 
looked  ''lazy  and  logy,"  lying  flat  on  her 

128 


PHYSICAL  CULTURE  FOR  GIRLS 

back  during  the  rest-time,  was  the  most 
active  of  the  players,  and  really  saved 
the  game. 

When  the  game  was  finished  the  woman 
said  to  her  friend  with  surprise  in  her 
voice:  "How  did  you  see  through  that, 
and  understand  what  that  girl  was  aiming 
for?" 

The  answer  was:  *'Well,  I  know  the 
girl,  and  both  she  and  I  have  read  Ep- 
hng's  'The  Maltese  Cat.'  Don't  you  re- 
member how  the  best  polo  ponies  in  that 
story,  when  they  were  off  duty,  hung 
their  heads  and  actually  made  themselves 
looked  fagged,  in  order  to  be  fresher  when 
the  time  came  to  play.?  And  how  'The 
Maltese  Cat'  scouted  the  silly  ponies 
who  held  their  heads  up  and  kicked  and 
looked  alert  while  they  waited.?  And 
don't  you  remember  the  result  ?  " 

"No,   I   never   read   the   story,    but   I 
have    certainly    seen   your    point    prove 

»  1^9 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

itself  to-day.  I  shall  read  it  at  once. 
Meanwhile,  I  want  to  speak  to  that  clever 
girl  who  could  catch  a  point  like  that 
and  use  it." 

"Take  care,  please,  that  you  do  not 
mention  it  to  her  at  all,"  said  the  friend. 
"You  will  draw  her  attention  back  to 
herself  and  likely  as  not  make  her  lose 
the  next  game.  Points  like  that  have  got 
to  be  worked  on  without  self-conscious- 
ness, not  talked  about." 

And  so  the  women  told  the  child  they 
were  glad  that  her  side  won  the  game 
and  never  mentioned  her  own  part  in  it 
at  all.  After  all  she  had  only  found  the 
law  that  the  more  passive  you  can  be 
when  it  is  time  to  rest,  the  more  alert 
you  are  and  the  more  powerful  in  ac- 
tivity. The  polo  pony  knew  it  as  a 
matter  of  course.  We  humans  have  to 
discover  it. 

Let  us,  just  for  the  interest  of  it,  follow 

130 


PHYSICAL  CULTURE  FOR  GIRLS 

that  same  basket-ball  player  a  little  more 
closely.  Was  she  well  developed  and 
evenly  trained  in  her  muscles  ?  Yes, 
very.  Did  she  go  to  gymnasium,  or  did 
she  scorn  it.^  She  went,  twice  a  week 
regularly,  and  had  good  fun  there;  but 
there  was  just  this  contrast  between  her 
and  most  of  the  girls  in  the  class :  Jane, 
as  we  will  call  her,  went  to  gymnasium 
as  a  means  to  an  end.  She  found  that 
she  got  an  even  development  there  which 
enabled  her  to  walk  better,  to  play  better, 
and  to  work  better.  In  gymnasium  she 
laid  her  muscular  foundation  on  which 
to  build  all  the  good,  active  work  of  her 
life.  The  gymnasium  she  went  to,  how- 
ever, was  managed  in  an  unusual  way: 
except  for  the  chest  weights,  which  always 
"opened  the  ball,"  the  members  of  the 
class  never  knew  what  work  they  were 
to  do.  Their  minds  were  kept  alert 
throughout  the  hour  and  a  half.    If  their 

131 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

attention  wavered  they  tripped  or  got 
behind  in  the  exercise,  and  the  mental 
action  which  went  into  the  movement 
of  every  muscle  made  the  body  alive  with 
the  healthy  activity  of  a  well-concentrated, 
well-directed  mind. 

Another  point  which  our  young  friend 
learned  at  gymnasium  was  to  direct  her 
mind  only  on  to  the  muscles  that  were 
needed.  Did  you  ever  try  to  clench  your 
fist  so  tight  that  it  could  not  be  opened  ? 
If  not,  try  it,  and  relax  all  over  your  body 
while  you  are  keeping  your  fist  tight 
closed.  You  will  see  that  the  more  limp 
your  body  becomes  the  tighter  you  can 
keep  your  fist  clenched.  All  the  force 
goes  in  that  one  direction.  In  this  way 
a  moderately  strong  girl  can  keep  a  strong 
man  hard  at  work  for  several  minutes 
before  he  can  make  any  impression  on 
the  closed  hand.  That  illustrates  in  a 
simple  way  the  fact  that  the  most  whole- 

132 


PHYSICAL   CULTURE   FOR   GIRLS 

some  concentration  is  that  which  comes 
from  dropping  everything  that  interferes 
—  letting  the  force  of  mind  or  body  flow 
only  in  the  direction  in  which  it  is  to  be 
used. 

Many  girls  use  their  brains  in  the  wrong 
way  while  on  the  gymnasium  floor  by 
saying  to  themselves,  *'I  cannot  do  that." 
The  brain  is  so  full  of  that  thought  that 
the  impression  an  open  brain  would 
receive  has  no  chance  to  enter,  and  the 
result  is  an  awkward,  nervous,  and  un- 
certain movement.  If  a  girl's  brain  and 
muscle  were  so  relaxed  that  the  impres- 
sion on  the  one  would  cause  a  correct  use 
and  movement  of  the  other  how  easy  it 
would  be  thereafter  to  apply  the  proper 
tension  to  the  muscle  at  the  proper  time 
without  overtaxing  the  nerves. 

Some  one  has  well  said  that  ''it  is 
training,  not  straining,  that  we  want  in 
our  gymnasiums."     Only  when  a  girl  is 

133 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

trained  from  this  point  of  view  does  she 
get  real  training. 

This  basket-ball  player  had  also  been 
taught  how  to  rest  after  exercise  in  a  way 
which  appealed  to  her  especially,  be- 
cause of  her  interest  which  had  already 
been  aroused  in  Kipling's  polo  pony. 
She  was  taught  intelligently  that  if,  after 
vigorous  exercise,  when  the  blood  is 
coursing  rapidly  all  over  the  body,  you 
allow  yourself  to  be  entirely  open  and 
passive,  the  blood  finds  no  interruptions 
in  its  work  and  can  carry  away  the  waste 
matter  much  more  effectually.  In  that 
way  you  get  the  full  result  of  the  exercise. 
It  is  not  necessary  always  to  lie  down  to 
have  your  body  passive  enough  after 
vigorous  exercise  to  get  the  best  results. 
If  you  sit  down  after  exercise  you  want 
to  sit  without  tension.  Or  if  you  walk 
home  from  gymnasium  you  want  to  walk 
loosely   and   freely,    keeping   your   chest 

134 


PHYSICAL  CULTURE  FOR   GIRLS 

up  and  a  little  in  advance,  and  pushing 
with  the  ball  of  your  back  foot  with  a 
good,  rhythmic  balance.  As  this  is  the 
best  way  to  sit  and  the  best  way  to  walk 
—  gymnasium  or  no  gymnasium  —  to 
look  out  for  a  well-balanced  sitting  and 
a  well-balanced  walk  directly  after 
vigorous  exercise,  keeps  us  in  good  form 
for  sitting  and  walking  all  the  time. 

I  know  of  a  professor  in  one  of  our 
large  colleges  who  was  offered  also  a 
professorship  in  a  woman's  college,  and 
he  refused  to  accept  because  he  said 
women's  minds  did  not  react.  When 
he  lectured  to  girls  he  found  that,  how- 
ever attentively  they  might  seem  to  listen, 
there  was  no  response.  They  gave  noth- 
ing in  return. 

Of  course  this  is  not  true  of  all  girls, 
and  of  course  the  gentleman  who  refused 
the  chair  in  the  woman's  college  would 
agree  that  it  is  not  true  of  all  girls,  but 

135 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

if  those  who  read  the  anecdote  would, 
instead  of  getting  indignant,  just  look 
into  the  matter  a  little,  they  would  see 
how  true  it  is  of  many  girls,  and  by  think- 
ing a  little  further  we  can  see  that  it  is 
not  at  present  the  girls'  fault.  A  hundred 
years  ago  girls  were  not  expected  to 
think.  I  remember  an  anecdote  which 
a  very  intelligent  old  lady  used  to  tell 
me  about  her  mother.  Once,  when  she 
was  a  little  girl,  her  mother  found  some 
fault  with  her  which  the  daughter  knew 
to  be  unjust,  and  she  answered  timidly, 
"But,  Mother,  I  think—" 

"Abigail,"  came  the  sharp  reminder, 
"you  've  no  business  to  think." 

One  hundred  years  ago  it  was  only  the 
very  exceptional  girls  who  really  thought. 
Now  we  are  gradually  working  toward 
the  place  where  every  girl  will  think. 
And  surely  it  cannot  be  very  long  now 
before   the   united   minds   of  a   class   of 

136 


PHYSICAL  CULTURE  FOR  GIRLS 

college  girls  will  have  the  habit  of  react- 
ing so  that  any  man  will  feel  in  his  own 
brain  a  vigorous  result  from  lecturing 
to   them. 

This  fact  that  a  girl's  brain  does  not 
react  is  proved  in  many  ways.  Most  of 
the  women  who  come  to  nerve  specialists 
seem  to  feel  that  they  are  to  sit  still  and 
be  cured,  while  the  men  who  come  re- 
spond and  do  their  part  much  more  in- 
telligently —  the  result  being  that  men 
get  out  of  "nerves"  in  half  the  time  and 
stay  out,  whereas  girls  often  get  out  a 
little  way  and  slump  (literally  slump) 
back  again  before  they  can  be  helped  to 
respond  truly  enough  to  get  well  and 
keep  themselves  well.  This  information 
is  given  only  with  an  idea  of  stirring  girls 
up  to  their  best  possibilites,  for  there  is 
not  a  woman  born  with  a  sound  mind 
who  is  not  capable  of  reacting  mentally, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  to  all  that  she 

137 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

hears,  provided  she  uses  her  will  con- 
sciously to  form  the  new  habit. 

Now  this  need  of  intelligent  reaction 
is  just  the  trouble  with  girls  and  physical 
culture.  Physical  culture  should  be  a 
means  to  an  end  —  and  that  is  all,  ab- 
solutely all.  It  is  delightful  and  strength- 
ening when  it  is  taught  thoughtfully  as 
a  means  to  an  end,  and  I  might  almost 
say  it  is  only  weakening  when  it  is  made 
an  end  in  itself. 

Girls  need  to  react  intelligently  to  what 
is  given  them  in  physical  training  as  much 
as  to  what  is  given  them  in  a  lecture  on 
literature  or  philosophy  or  botany.  How 
many  girls  do  we  know  who  take  physical 
culture  in  a  class,  often  simply  because  it 
is  popular  at  the  time,  and  never  think 
of  taking  a  long  walk  in  the  country  — 
never  think  of  going  in  for  a  vigorous 
outdoor  gsime?  How  many  girls  do  we 
know    w^ho    take    physical    culture    and 

138 


PHYSICAL   CULTURE   FOR   GIRLS 

never  think  of  making  life  easy  for  their 
stomachs,  or  seeing  that  they  get  a 
normal  amount  of  sleep  ?  Exercise  in 
the  fresh  air,  with  a  hearty  objective 
interest  in  all  that  is  going  on  about  us, 
is  the  very  best  sort  of  exercise  that  we 
can  take,  and  physical  culture  is  worse 
than  nothing  if  it  is  not  taken  only  as  a 
means  to  enable  us  to  do  more  in  the 
open  air,  and  do  it  better,  and  gain  from 
it  more  life. 

There  is  one  girl  who  comes  to  my  mind 
of  whom  I  should  like  to  tell  because  she 
illustrates  truly  a  point  that  we  cannot 
consider  too  carefully.  She  went  to  a 
nerve  specialist  very  much  broken  in 
health,  and  when  asked  if  she  took  plenty 
of  exercise  in  the  open  air  she  replied: 
''Yes,  indeed."  And  it  was  proved  to 
be  the  very  best  exercise.  She  had  a  good 
horse,  and  she  rode  well ;  she  rode  a  great 
deal,  and  not  too  much.     She  had  inter- 

139 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

esting  dogs  and  she  took  them  with  her. 
She  walked,  too,  in  beautiful  country. 
But  she  was  carrying  in  her  mind  all  the 
time  extreme  resistance  to  other  circum- 
stances of  her  life.  She  did  not  know 
how  to  drop  the  resistance  or  face  the 
circumstances,  and  the  mental  strain 
in  which  she  held  herself  day  and  night, 
waking  or  sleeping,  prevented  the  out- 
door exercise  from  really  refreshing  her. 
When  she  learned  to  face  the  circum- 
stances then  the  exercise  could  do  its 
good  work. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many 
forms  of  nervous  resistance  and  many 
disagreeable  moods  which  good,  vigor- 
ous exercise  will  blow  away  entirely, 
leaving  our  minds  so  clear  that  we  wonder 
at  ourselves,  and  wonder  that  we  could 
ever  have  had  those  morbid  thoughts. 

The  mind  acts  and  the  body  reacts,  the 
body  acts  and  the  mind  reacts,  but  of 
i  140 


PHYSICAL  CULTURE  FOR  GIRLS 

course  at  the  root  of  it  all  is  the  real  desire 
for  what  is  normal,  or  —  alas  !  —  the  lack 
of  that  desire. 

If  physical  culture  does  not  make  us 
love  the  open  air,  if  it  does  not  make  us 
love  to  take  a  walk  or  climb  a  mountain, 
if  it  does  not  help  us  to  take  the  walk  or 
climb  the  mountain  with  more  freedom, 
if  it  does  not  make  us  move  along  out- 
doors so  easily  that  we  forget  our  bodies 
altogether,  and  only  enjoy  what  we  see 
about  us  and  feel  how  good  it  is  to  be 
alive  —  why,  then  physical  culture  is  only 
an  ornament  without  any  use. 

There  is  an  interesting  point  in  moun- 
tain-climbing which  I  should  like  to  speak 
of,  by  the  way,  and  which  makes  it  much 
pleasanter  and  better  exercise.  If,  after 
first  starting  —  and,  of  course,  you  should 
start  very  slowly  and  heavily,  like  an  ele- 
phant —  you  get  out  of  breath,  let  your- 
self stay  out  of  breath.    Even  emphasize 

141 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

the  being  out  of  breath  by  breathing 
harder  than  your  lungs  started  to  breathe, 
and  then  let  your  lungs  pump  and  pump 
and  pump  until  they  find  their  own  equi- 
librium. The  result  is  delightful,  and 
the  physical  freedom  that  follows  is  more 
than  delightful.  I  remember  seeing  two 
girls  climbing  in  the  high  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  this  way,  when  other  women 
were  going  up  on  ponies.  Finally  one 
of  the  guides  looked  back,  and  with  an 
expression  of  mild  astonishment  said: 
"Well,  you  have  lungs!"  This  was  a 
very  pleasant  proof  of  the  right  kind  of 
breathing. 

There  are  many  good  points  for  climb- 
ing and  walking  and  swimming  and  all 
outdoor  exercise  that  can  be  gained  from 
the  best  sort  of  physical  culture;  and 
physical  culture  is  good  for  girls  when 
it  gives  these  points  and  leads  to  a  spon- 
taneous love  for  outdoor  exercise.     But 

142 


PHYSICAL   CULt\jRE    FOR    GIRLS 

when  it  results  only  in  a  self-conscious 
pose  of  the  body  then  it  is  harmful. 

We  want  to  have  strong  bodies,  free 
for  every  normal  action,  with  quiet  nerves, 
and  muscles  well  coordinated.  Then 
our  bodies  are  merely  instruments :  good, 
clean,  healthy  instruments.  They  are 
the  ''mechanism  of  the  outside."  And 
when  the  mechanism  of  the  outside  is 
well  oiled  and  running  smoothly  it  can 
be  forgotten. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  physical 
culture  is  good  for  girls  provided  it  is 
given  and  taken  with  intelligent  interest, 
but  it  must  be  done  thoroughly  to  be 
done  to  real  advantage.  As,  for  instance, 
the  part  the  shower-bath  plays  after  ex- 
ercising is  most  important,  for  it  equalizes 
the  circulation.  Physical  culture  is  good 
for  girls  who  have  little  or  no  muscular 
action  in  their  daily  lives,  for  it  gives 
them  the  healthiest  exercise  in  the  least 

143 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

space  of  time,  and  prepares  them  to  get 
more  life  from  exercise  outdoors.  It  is 
good  for  girls  whose  daily  lives  are  full 
of  activity,  because  it  develops  the  un- 
used muscles  and  so  rests  those  that 
have  been  overused.  Many  a  hard- 
working girl  has  entered  the  gymnasium 
class  tired  and  has  left  it  rested. 


144 


Chapter  XI 
Working  Restfully 

I  ONCE  met  a  man  who  had  to  do  an 
important  piece  of  scientific  work  in 
a  given  time.  He  worked  from 
Saturday  afternoon  at  2  o'clock  until  Mon- 
day morning  at  10  o'clock  without  inter- 
ruption, except  for  one  hour's  sleep  and 
the  necessary  time  it  took  for  nourishment. 
After  he  had  finished  he  was,  of  course, 
intensely  tired,  but  instead  of  going  right 
to  bed  and  to  sleep,  and  taking  all  that 
brain  strain  to  sleep  with  him  he  took 
his  dog  and  his  gun  and  went  hunting  for 
several  hours. 

Turning  his  attention  to  something  so 
entirely    different    gave    the    other    part 
of  his  brain  a  chance  to  recover  itself  a 
10  145 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

little.  The  fresh  air  revived  him,  and  the 
gentle  exercise  started  up  his  circulation. 

If  he  had  gone  directly  to  sleep  after 
his  work,  the  chances  are  that  it  would 
have  taken  him  days  to  recover  from  the 
fatigue,  for  nature  would  have  had  too 
much  against  her  to  have  reacted  quickly 
from  so  abnormal  a  strain  —  getting  an 
entire  change  of  attention  and  starting 
up  his  circulation  in  the  fresh  air  gave 
nature  just  the  start  she  needed.  After 
that  she  could  work  steadily  while  he 
slept,  and  he  awakened  rested  and 
refreshed. 

To  write  from  Saturday  afternoon  until 
Monday  morning  seems  a  stupid  thing 
to  do  —  no  matter  what  the  pressure 
is.  To  work  for  an  abnormal  time  or 
at  an  abnormal  rate  is  almost  always 
stupid  and  short  sighted. 

There  are  exceptions,  however,  and  it 
would   be   good   if   for   those   exceptions 

146 


WORKING  RESTFULLY 

people  knew  how  to  take  the  best  care 
of  themselves.  But  it  is  not  only  after 
such  abnormal  work  that  we  need  to 
know  how  to  react  most  restfully.  It  is 
important  after  all  work,  and  especially 
for  those  who  have  some  steady  labor 
for  the  whole  day. 

Every  one  is  more  or  less  tired  at  the 
end  of  the  day  and  the  temptation  is  to 
drop  into  a  chair  or  lie  down  on  the 
sofa  or  to  go  right  to  bed  and  go  to  sleep. 

Don't  do  it. 

Get  some  entire,  active  change  for 
your  brain,  if  it  is  only  for  fifteen  min- 
utes or  half  an  hour.  If  you  live  in 
the  city,  even  to  go  to  walk  and  look  into 
the  shop  windows  is  better  than  nothing. 
In  that  way  you  get  fresh  air,  and  if  one 
knows  how  to  look  into  shop  windows 
without  wanting  anything  or  everything 
they  see  there,  then  it  is  very  entertaining. 

It  is  a  good  game  to  look  into  a  shop 

147 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

window  for  two  or  three  minutes  and 
then  look  away  and  see  how  well  you  can 
remember  everything  in  it.  It  is  im- 
portant always  to  take  shop  windows  that 
are  out  of  one's  own  line  of  work. 

If  you  live  in  the  country,  a  little 
walk  out  of  doors  is  pleasanter  than 
in  the  city,  for  the  air  is  better;  and 
there  is  much  that  is  interesting,  in  the 
way  of  trees  and  sky,  and  stars,  at  night. 

As  you  walk,  make  a  conscious  effort 
to  look  out  and  about  you.  Forget  the 
work  of  the  day,  and  take  good  long 
breaths. 

When  you  do  not  feel  like  going  out 
of  doors,  take  a  story  book  —  or  some 
other  reading,  if  you  prefer  —  and  put 
your  mind  right  on  it  for  half  an  hour. 

The  use  of  a  really  good  novel  cannot 
be  overestimated.  It  not  only  serves  as 
recreation,  but  it  introduces  us  to  phases 
of  human  nature  that  otherwise  we  would 

148 


WORKING  RESTFULLY 

know  nothing  whatever  about.  A  very 
great  change  from  the  day's  work  can  be 
found  in  a  good  novel  and  a  very  happy 
change. 

If  the  air  in  the  theaters  were  fresher 
and  good  seats  did  not  cost  so  much 
a  good  play,  well  acted,  would  be  better 
than  a  good  novel.  Sometimes  it  freshens 
us  up  to  play  a  game  after  the  day's 
work  is  over,  and  for  those  who  love 
music  there  is  of  course  the  greatest  rest 
in  that.  But  there  again  comes  in  the 
question  of  cost. 

Why  does  not  some  kind  soul  start 
concerts  for  the  people  where,  for  a 
nominal  admission,  the  best  music  can 
be  heard  .P  And  why  does  not  some 
other  kind  soul  start  a  theater  for  the 
people  where,  for  a  very  small  price  of 
admission,  they  can  see  the  best  plays 
and  see  them  well  acted  ? 

We   have   public   libraries   in   all    our 

149 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

cities  and  towns,  and  a  librarian  in  one 
large  city  loves  to  tell  the  tale  of  a  poor 
woman  in  the  slums  with  her  door 
barred  with  furniture  for  fear  of  the 
drunken  raiders  in  the  house,  quietly 
reading  a  book  from  the  public  library. 

There  are  many  similar  stories  to  go 
with  that.  If  we  had  really  good  theaters 
and  really  good  concerts  to  be  reached 
as  simply  and  as  easily  as  the  books  in 
our  public  libraries,  the  healthy  influence 
throughout  the  cities  would  be  propor- 
tionately increased.  The  trouble  is  that 
people  cater  as  much  to  the  rich  with  their 
ideas  of  a  national  theater  as  the  theatrical 
syndicate  itself. 

I  could  not  pretend  to  suggest  amuse- 
ments that  would  appeal  to  any  or  every 
reader,  but  I  can  make  my  point  clear 
that  when  one  is  tired  it  is  healthy  to 
have  a  change  of  activity  before  going 
to  rest. 

150 


WORKING  RESTFULLY 

"Oh,"  I  hear/*  I  can't!  I  can't !  lam 
too  tired." 

I  know  the  feeling. 

I  have  no  doubt  the  man  who  wrote 
for  nearly  two  days  had  a  very  strong 
tendency  to  go  right  to  bed,  but  he  had 
common  sense  behind  it,  and  he  knew 
the  result  would  be  better  if  he  followed 
his  common  sense  rather  than  his  inclina- 
tion.   And  so  it  proved. 

It  seems  very  hard  to  realize  that  it 
is  not  the  best  thing  to  go  right  to  bed 
or  to  sit  and  do  nothing  when  one  is  so 
tired  as  to  make  it  seem  impossible  to  do 
anything  else. 

It  would  be  wrong  to  take  vigorous 
physical  exercise  after  great  brain  or 
body  fatigue,  but  entire  change  of  atten- 
tion and  gentle  exercise  is  just  what  is 
needed,  although  care  should  always  be 
taken  not  to  keep  at  it  too  long.  Any 
readers  who  make  up  their  minds  to  try 

151 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

this  process  of  resting  will  soon  prove  its 
happy  effect. 

A  quotation  from  a  recent  daily  paper 
reads,  " '  Rest  while  you  work,'  says 
Annie  Payson  Call,"  —  and  then  the  edi- 
tor adds,  ''and  get  jfired,"  and  although 
the  opportunity  for  the  joke  was  probably 
thought  too  good  to  lose,  it  was  a  nat- 
ural misinterpretation  of  a  very  practical 
truth. 

I  can  easily  imagine  a  woman  —  espe- 
cially a  tired  out  and  bitter  woman  — 
reading  directions  telling  how  to  work 
restfully  and  exclaiming  with  all  the 
vehemence  of  her  bitterness:  "That  is 
all  very  well  to  write  about.  It  sounds 
well,  but  let  any  one  take  hold  of  my 
work  and  try  to  do  it  restfully. 

"If  my  employer  should  come  along 
and  see  me  working  in  a  lazy  way  like 
that,  he  would  very  soon  discharge  me. 
No,  no.     I  am  tired  out;    I  must  keep 

152 


WORKING  RESTFULLY 

at  it  as  long  as  I  can,  and  when  I  cannot 
keep  at  it  any  longer,  I  will  die  —  and 
there  is  the  end." 

"It  is  nothing  but  drudge,  drudge  for 
your  bread  and  butter  —  and  what  does 
your  bread  and  butter  amount  to  when 
you  get  it?" 

There  are  thousands  of  women  work- 
ing to-day  with  bodies  and  minds  so 
steeped  in  their  fatigue  that  they  can- 
not or  will  not  take  an  idea  outside  of 
their  rut  of  work.  The  rut  has  grown 
so  deep,  and  they  have  sunken  in  so  far 
that  they  cannot  look  over  the  edge. 

It  is  true  that  it  is  easier  to  do  good 
hard  work  in  the  lines  to  which  one  has 
been  accustomed  than  to  do  easy  work 
which  is  strange.  Nerves  will  go  on  in 
old  accustomed  habits  —  even  habits  of 
tiresome  strain  —  more  easily  than  they 
will  be  changed  into  new  habits  of 
working   without   strain. 

153 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

The  mind,  too,  gets  saturated  with  a 
sense  of  fatigue  until  the  fatigue  seems 
normal,  and  to  feel  well  rested  would  — 
at  first  —  seem  abnormal.  This  being 
a  fact,  it  is  a  logical  result  that  an  habitu- 
ally tired  and  strained  mind  will  in- 
dignantly refuse  the  idea  that  it  can  do 
more  work  and  do  it  better  without  the 
strain. 

There  is  a  sharp  corner  to  be  turned 
to  learn  to  work  without  strain,  when 
one  has  had  the  habit  of  working  with  it. 
After  the  corner  is  turned,  it  requires 
steady,  careful  study  to  understand  the 
new  normal  habit  of  working  restfully, 
and  to  get  the  new  habit  established. 

When  once  it  is  established,  this  nor- 
mal habit  of  work  develops  its  own 
requirements,  and  the  working  without 
strain  becomes  to  us  an  essential  part 
of  the  work  itself. 

For  taken  as  a  whole,  more  work  is 

154 


WORKING   RESTFULLY 

done  and  the  work  is  done  better  when 
we  avoid  strain  than  when  we  do  not. 
What  is  required  to  find  this  out  is  com- 
mon sense  and  strength  of  character. 

Character  grows  with  practice;  it 
builds  and  builds  on  itself  when  once 
it  has  a  fair  start,  and  a  very  little  in- 
telligence is  needed  if  once  the  will  is 
used  to  direct  the  body  and  mind  in  the 
lines  of  common  sense. 

Intelligence  grows,  too,  as  we  use  it. 
Everything  good  in  the  soul  grows  with 
use;  everything  bad,  destroys. 

Let  us  make  a  distinction  to  begin 
with  between  "rest  while  you  work" 
and  "working  restfully." 

"Rest  while  you  work"  might  imply 
laziness.  There  is  a  time  for  rest  and 
there  is  a  time  for  work.  When  we 
work  we  should  work  entirely.  When 
we  rest  we  should  rest  entirely. 

If  we  try  to  mix  rest  and  work,  we 

155 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

do  neither  well.  That  is  true.  But  if 
we  work  restfully,  we  work  then  with 
the  greatest  amount  of  power  and  the 
least  amount  of  effort. 

That  means  more  work  and  work 
better  done  after  the  right  habit  is  estab- 
lished than  we  did  before,  when  the 
wrong  habit  was  established.  The  diffi- 
culty comes,  and  the  danger  of  *' get- 
ting fired,"  when  we  are  changing  our 
habit. 

To  obviate  that  difficulty,  we  must  be 
content  to  change  our  habit  more  slowly. 

Suppose  we  come  home  Saturday  night 
all  tired  out;  go  to  bed  and  go  to  sleep, 
and  wake  Sunday  almost  more  tired  than 
when  we  went  to  bed.  On  Sunday  we 
do  not  have  to  go  to  work. 

Let  us  take  a  little  time  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  thinking  our  work  over,  and 
trying  to  find  where  the  unnecessary 
strain  is. 

156 


WORKING   RESTFULLY 

"But,"  I  hear  some  one  say,  "I  am 
too  tired  to  think."  Now  it  is  a  scientific 
fact  that  when  our  brains  are  all  tired 
out  in  one  direction,  if  we  use  our  wills 
to  start  them  working  in  another  direc- 
tion, they  will  get  rested. 

"But,"  again  I  hear,  "if  I  think  about 
my  work,  why  is  n't  that  using  my  brain 
in  the  same  direction.^"  Because  in 
thinking  to  apply  new  principles  to  work, 
of  which  you  have  never  thought  before, 
you  are  thinking  in  a  new  direction. 

Not  only  that,  but  in  applying  new 
and  true  principles  to  your  work  you 
are  bringing  new  life  into  the  work 
itself. 

On  this  Sunday  morning,  when  you 
take  an  hour  to  devote  yourself  to  the 
study  of  how  you  can  work  without 
getting  overtired  ask  yourself  the  follow- 
ing questions :  — 

(1)  "What    do    I    resist   in    or    about 

157 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

my  work?"  Find  out  each  thing  that 
you  do  resist,  and  drop  the  contractions 
that  come  in  your  body,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  dropping  the  resistances  in  your 
mind. 

(2)  ''Do  I  drop  my  work  at  meals 
and  eat  quietly?" 

(3)  "Do  I  take  every  opportunity  that 
I  can  to  get  fresh  air,  and  take  good, 
full  breaths  of  it?" 

(4)  "Do  I  feel  hurried  and  pushed  in 
my  work  ?  Do  I  realize  that  no  matter 
how  much  of  a  hurry  there  may  be,  I  can 
hurry  more  effectively  if  I  drop  the 
strain  of  the  hurry?" 

(5)  "How  much  superfluous  strain  do 
I  use  in  my  work  ?  Do  I  work  with  a 
feeling  of  strain?  How  can  I  observe 
better  in  order  to  become  conscious  of 
the  strain  and  drop  it?" 

These  are  enough  questions  for  one 
time !    If  you  concentrate  on  these  ques- 

158 


WORKING   RESTFULLY 

tions  and  on  finding  the  answers,  and 
do  it  diligently,  you  will  be  surprised 
to  see  how  the  true  answers  will  come 
to  you,  and  how  much  clearer  they  will 
become  as  you  put  them  into  daily 
practice. 


159 


Chapter  XII 
Imaginary  Vacations 

ONCE  a  young  woman  who  had 
very  hard  work  to  do  day  after 
day  and  who  had  come  to  where 
she  was  chronically  strained  and  tired, 
turned  to  her  mother  just  as  she  was 
starting  for  work  in  the  morning,  and  in 
a  voice  tense  with  fatigue  and  trouble, 
said :  — 

''Mother,  I  cannot  stand  it.  I  cannot 
stand  it.  Unless  I  can  get  a  vacation 
long  enough  at  least  to  catch  my  breathy 
I  shall  break  down  altogether." 

''Why  don't  you  take  a  vacation  to- 
day.^"  asked  her  mother.    The  daughter 
got  a  little  irritated  and  snapped  out :  — 
"Why  do  you  say  such  a  foolish  thing 
as   that.   Mother  .P      You   know   as  well 

160 


IMAGINARY  VACATIONS 

as  I  that   I   could   not  leave   my  work 
to-day." 

*' Don't  be  cross,  dear.  Stop  a  minute 
and  let  me  tell  you  what  I  mean.  I  have 
been  thinking  about  it  and  I  know  you 
will  appreciate  what  I  have  to  say,  and  I 
know  you  can  do  it.  Now  listen."  Where- 
upon the  mother  went  on  to  explain 
quite  graphically  a  process  of  pretense  — 
good,  wholesome  pretense. 

To  any  one  who  has  no  imagination 
this  would  not  or  could  not  appeal. 

To  the  young  woman  of  whom  I  write 
it  not  only  appealed  heartily,  but  she  tried 
it  and  made  it  work.  It  was  simply  that 
she  should  play  that  she  had  commenced 
her  vacation  and  was  going  to  school  to 
amuse  herself. 

As,  for  instance,  she  would  say  to  her- 
self, and  believe  it :    "Is  n't  it  good  that  I 
can  have  a  vacation  and  a  rest.     What 
shall  I  do  to  get  all  I  can  out  of  it? 
n  161 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

"I  think  I  will  go  and  see  what  they 
are  doing  in  the  grammar  school.  Maybe 
when  I  get  there  it  will  amuse  me  to  teach 
some  of  the  children.  It  is  always  inter- 
esting to  see  how  children  are  going  to 
take  what  you  say  to  them  and  to  see 
the  different  ways  in  which  they  recite 
their  lessons." 

By  the  time  she  got  to  school  she  was 
very  much  cheered.  Looking  up  she 
said  to  herself:  "This  must  be  the 
building." 

She  had  been  in  it  every  school  day 
for  five  years  past,  but  through  the  proc- 
ess of  her  little  game  it  looked  quite 
new  and  strange  now. 

She  went  in  the  door  and  when  the 
children  said  "good  morning,"  and  some 
of  them  seemed  glad  to  see  her,  she  said 
to  herself:  "Why,  they  seem  to  know 
me;    I  wonder  how  that  happens.?" 

Occasionally  she  was  so  much  amused 

162 


IMAGINARY  VACATIONS 

at  her  own  consistency  in  keeping  up 
the  game  that  she  nearly  laughed  out- 
right. She  heard  each  class  recite  as  if 
she  were  teaching  for  the  first  time.  She 
looked  upon  each  separate  child  as  if  she 
had  never  seen  him  before  and  he  was 
interesting  to  her  as  a  novel  study. 

She  found  the  schoolroom  more  cheer- 
ful and  was  surprised  into  perceiving  a 
pleasant  sort  of  silent  communication  that 
started  up  between  her  pupils  and  herself. 

When  school  was  over  she  put  on  her 
hat  and  coat  to  go  home,  with  the  sense 
of  having  done  something  restful;  and 
when  she  appeared  to  her  mother,  it  was 
with  a  smiling,  cheerful  face,  which  made 
her  mother  laugh  outright ;  and  then  they 
both  laughed  and  went  out  for  a  walk 
in  the  fresh  air,  before  coming  in  to  go  to 
bed,  and  be  ready  to  begin  again  the  next 
day. 

In  the  morning  the  mother  felt  a  little 

163 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

anxious  and  asked  timidly:  ''Do  you 
believe  you  can  make  it  work  again  to- 
day, just  as  well  as  yesterday?" 

"Yes,  indeed  and  better,"  said  the 
daughter.  ''It  is  too  much  fun  not  to  go 
on  with  it." 

After  breakfast  the  mother  with  a  little 
roguish  twinkle,  said:  "Well,  what  do 
you  think  you  will  do  to  amuse  yourself 
to-day,  Alice  .^" 

"Oh  !  I  think  —  "  and  then  they  both 
laughed  and  Alice  started  off  on  her 
second  day's  "vacation." 

By  the  end  of  a  week  she  was  out  of 
that  tired  rut  and  having  a  very  good 
time.  New  ideas  had  come  to  her  about 
the  school  and  the  children;  in  fact, 
from  being  dead  and  heavy  in  her  work, 
she  had  become  alive. 

When  she  found  the  old  tired  state 
coming  on  her  again,  she  and  her 
mother   always  "took   a  vacation,"  and 

164 


IMAGINARY  VACATIONS 

every  time  avoided  the  tired  rut  more 
easily. 

If  one  only  has  imagination  enough, 
the  helpfulness  and  restfulness  of  play- 
ing ''take  a  vacation"  will  tell  equally 
well  in  any  kind  of  work. 

You  can  play  at  dressmaking  —  play 
at  millinery  —  play  at  keeping  shop.  You 
can  make  a  game  of  any  sort  of  drudg- 
ery, and  do  the  work  better  for  it,  as  well 
as  keep  better  rested  and  more  healthy 
yourself.  But  you  must  be  steady  and 
persistent  and  childlike  in  the  way  you 
play  your  game. 

Do  not  stop  in  the  middle  and  exclaim, 
"How  silly  !"  —  and  then  slump  into  the 
tired  state  again. 

What  I  am  telling  you  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  a  good  healthy  process  of 
self -hypnotism.  Really,  it  is  more  the 
attitude  we  take  toward  our  work  that 
tires  us  than  the  work  itself.    If  we  could 

165 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

only  learn  that  and  realize  it  as  a  practical 
fact,  it  would  save  a  great  deal  of  unneces- 
sary suffering  and  even  illness. 

We  do  not  need  to  play  vacation  all  the 
time,  of  course.  The  game  might  get 
stale  then  and  lose  its  power.  If  we  play 
it  for  two  or  three  days,  whenever  we  get 
so  tired  that  it  seems  as  if  we  could  not 
bear  it  —  play  it  just  long  enough  to  lift 
ourselves  out  of  the  rut  —  then  we  can 
"go  to  work  again"  until  we  need  another 
vacation. 

We  need  not  be  afraid  nor  ashamed  to 
bring  back  that  childlike  tendency  —  it 
will  be  of  very  great  use  to  our  mature 
minds. 

If  we  try  to  play  the  vacation  game, 
it  is  wiser  to  say  nothing  about  it.  It 
is  not  a  game  that  we  can  be  sure  of 
sharing  profitably  either  to  ourselves  or 
to   others. 

If  you  find  it  works,  and  give  the  secret 

166 


IMAGINARY  VACATIONS 

to  a  friend,  tell  her  to  play  it  without  men- 
tioning it  to  you,  even  though  she  shares 
your  work  and  is  sitting  in  the  next  chair 
to  you. 

Another  most  healthy  process  of  rest- 
ing while  you  work  is  by  means  of  lower- 
ing the  pressure. 

Suppose  you  were  an  engine,  whose 
normal  pressure  was  six  hundred  pounds, 
we  will  say.  Make  yourself  work  at  a 
pressure  of  only  three  hundred  pounds. 

The  human  engine  works  with  so  much 
more  strain  than  is  necessary  that  if  a 
woman  gets  overtired  and  tries  to  lighten 
her  work  by  lightening  the  pressure  with 
which  she  does  it,  she  will  find  that  really 
she  has  only  thrown  off  the  unnecessary 
strain,  and  is  not  only  getting  over  her 
fatigue  by  working  restfuUy,  but  is  doing 
her  work  better,  too. 

In  the  process  of  learning  to  use  less 
pressure,  the  work  may  seem  to  be  going 

167 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

a  little  more  slowly  at  first,  but  we  shall 
find  that  it  will  soon  go  faster,  and  better, 
as  time  establishes  the  better  habit. 

One  thing  seems  singular;  and  yet  it 
appeals  entirely  to  our  common  sense  as 
we  think  of  it.  There  never  comes  a 
time  when  we  cannot  learn  to  work  more 
effectively  at  a  lower  pressure.  We  never 
get  to  where  we  cannot  lessen  our  pres- 
sure and  thus  increase  our  power. 

The  very  interest  of  using  less  pres- 
sure adds  zest  to  our  work,  however  it 
may  have  seemed  like  drudging  before, 
and  the  possibility  of  resting  while  we 
work  opens  to  us  much  that  is  new  and 
refreshing,  and  gives  us  clearer  under- 
standing of  how  to  rest  more  completely 
while  we  rest. 

All  kinds  of  resting,  and  all  kinds  of 
working,  can  bring  more  vitality  than 
most  of  us  know,  until  we  have  learned 
to  rest  and  to  work  without  strain. 

168 


Chapter  XIII 
The  Woman  at  the  Next  Desk 

IT  may  be  the  woman  sewing  in  the 
next   chair;    it  may  be  the  woman 
standing  next  at  the  same  counter; 
it  may  be  the  woman  next  at  a  working 
table,  or  it  may  be  the  woman  at  the  next 
desk. 

Whichever  one  it  is,  many  a  working 
woman  has  her  life  made  wretched  by 
her,  and  it  would  be  a  strange  thing  for 
this  miserable  woman  to  hear  and  a 
stranger  thing  —  at  first  —  for  her  to  be- 
lieve that  the  woman  at  the  next  desk 
need  not  trouble  her  at  all. 

That,  if  she  only  could  realize  it,  the 
cause  of  the  irritation  which  annoyed  her 
every  day  and  dragged  her  down  so  that 
many  and  many  a  night  she  had  been 

169 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

home  with  a  sick  headache  was  entirely 
and  solely  in  herself  and  not  at  all  in  the 
woman  who  worked  next  to  her,  however 
disagreeable  that  woman  may  have  been. 

Every  morning  when  she  wakes  the 
woman  at  the  next  desk  rises  before  her 
like  a  black  specter.  "Oh,  I  would  not 
mind  the  work;  I  could  work  all  day 
happily  and  quietly  and  go  home  at  night 
and  rest ;  the  work  would  be  a  joy  to  me 
compared  to  this  torture  of  having  to  live 
all  day  next  to  that  woman." 

It  is  odd,  too,  and  true,  that  if  the 
woman  at  the  next  desk  finds  that  she 
is  annoying  our  friend,  unconsciously  she 
seems  to  ferret  out  her  most  sensitive 
places  and  rub  them  raw  with  her  sharp, 
discourteous  words. 

She  seems  to  shirk  her  own  work  pur- 
posely and  to  arrange  it  so  that  the 
woman  next  her  must  do  the  work  in 
her  place.     Then,  having  done  all  in  her 

170 


THE  WOMAN  AT  THE  NEXT  DESK 

power  to  give  the  woman  next  her  harder 
labor,  she  snaps  out  a  little  scornful  re- 
mark about  the  mistakes  that  have  been 
made. 

If  she  —  the  woman  at  the  next  desk  — 
comes  in  in  the  morning  feeling  tired  and 
irritable  herself,  she  vents  her  irritability 
on  her  companion  until  she  has  worked  it 
off  and  goes  home  at  night  feeling  much 
better  herself,  while  her  poor  neighbor 
goes  home  tired  out  and  weak. 

The  woman  at  the  next  desk  takes 
pains  to  let  little  disagreeable  hints  drop 
about  others  —  if  not  directly  in  their 
hearing  at  least  in  ways  which  she  knows 
may  reach  them. 

She  drops  hint  to  others  of  what  those 
in  higher  office  have  said  or  appeared  to 
think,  which  might  frighten  ''others" 
quite  out  of  their  wits  for  fear  of  their 
being  discharged,  and  then,  where  should 
they  get  their  bread  and  butter? 

171 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

All  this  and  more  that  is  frightful  and 
disagreeable  and  mean  may  the  woman 
at  the  next  desk  do;  or  she  may  be  just 
plain,  every-day  ugly. 

Every  one  knows  the  trying  phases  of 
her  own  working  neighbor.  But  with 
all  this,  and  with  worse  possibilities  of 
harassment  than  I  have  even  touched 
upon,  the  woman  at  the  next  desk  is 
powerless,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  if 
I  choose  to  make  her  so. 

The  reason  she  troubles  me  is  because 
I  resist  her.  If  she  hurts  my  feelings, 
that  is  the  same  thing.  I  resist  her,  and 
the  resistance,  instead  of  making  me 
angry,  makes  me  sore  in  my  nerves  and 
makes  me  want  to  cry.  The  way  to  get 
independent  of  her  is  not  to  resist  her, 
and  the  way  to  learn  not  to  resist  her  is 
to  make  a  daily  and  hourly  study  of 
dropping  all  resistances  to  her 

This    study    has    another    advantage, 

172 


THE  WOMAN  AT  THE  NEXT  DESK 

too;  if  we  once  get  well  started  on  it, 
it  becomes  so  interesting  that  the  con- 
centration on  this  new  interest  brings  new 
life  in  itself. 

Resistance  in  the  mind  brings  contrac- 
tion in  the  body.  If,  when  we  find  our 
minds  resisting  that  which  is  disagreeable 
in  another,  we  give  our  attention  at  once 
to  finding  the  resultant  contraction  in  our 
bodies,  and  then  concentrate  our  wills  on 
loosening  out  of  the  contraction,  we  can- 
not help  getting  an  immediate  result. 

Even  though  it  is  a  small  result  at  the 
beginning,  if  we  persist,  results  will  grow 
until  we,  literally,  find  ourselves  free  from 
the  woman  at  the  next  desk. 

This  woman  says  a  disagreeable  thing; 
we  contract  to  it  mind  and  body.  We 
drop  the  contraction  from  our  bodies, 
with  the  desire  to  drop  it  from  our  minds, 
for  loosening  the  physical  tension  reacts 
upon  the  mental  strain  and  relieves  it. 

173 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

We  can  say  to  ourselves  quite  cheer- 
fully: ''I  wish  she  would  go  ahead  and 
say  another  disagreeable  thing;  I  should 
like  to  try  the  experiment  again."  She 
gives  you  an  early  opportunity  and  you 
try  the  experiment  again,  and  again,  and 
then  again,  until  finally  your  brain  gets 
the  habit  of  trying  the  experiment  with- 
out any  voluntary  effort  on  your  part. 

That  habit  being  established,  you  are 
free  from  the  woman  at  the  next  desk.  She 
cannot  irritate  you  nor  wear  upon  you, 
no  matter  how  she  tries,  no  matter  what 
she  says,  or  what  she  does. 

There  is,  however,  this  trouble  about 
dropping  the  contraction.  We  are  apt 
to  have  a  feeling  of  what  we  might  call 
"righteous  indignation"  at  annoyances 
which  are  put  upon  us  for  no  reason; 
that,  so-called,  ''righteous  indignation" 
takes  the  form  of  resistance  and  makes 
physical  contractions. 

174 


THE  WOMAN  AT  THE  NEXT  DESK 

It  is  useless  to  drop  the  physical  con- 
traction if  the  indignation  is  going  to 
rise  and  tighten  us  all  up  again.  If  we 
drop  the  physical  and  mental  contrac- 
tions we  must  have  something  good  to 
fill  the  open  channels  that  have  been  made. 
Therefore  let  us  give  our  best  attention 
to  our  work,  and  if  opportunity  offers, 
do  a  kindness  to  the  woman  at  the  next 
desk. 

Finally,  when  she  finds  that  her  ways 
do  not  annoy,  she  will  stop  them.  She 
will  probably,  for  a  time  at  first,  try  harder 
to  be  disagreeable,  and  then  after  recover- 
ing from  several  surprises  at  not  being 
able  to  annoy,  she  will  quiet  down  and 
grow  less  disagreeable. 

If  we  realize  the  effect  of  successive 
and  continued  resistance  upon  ourselves 
and  realize  at  the  same  time  that  we  can 
drop  or  hold  those  resistances  as  we 
choose  to  work   to  get    free  from  them, 

175 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

or  suffer  and  hold  them,  then  we 
can  appreciate  the  truth  that  if  the 
woman  at  the  next  desk  continues  to 
annoy  us,  it  is  our  fault  entirely,  and 
not  hers. 


176 


Chapter  XIV 
Telephones  and  Telephoning 

MOST  men  —  and  women  —  use 
more   nervous   force   in   speak- 
ing through  the  telephone  than 
would   be   needed   to   keep   them   strong 
and  healthy  for  years. 

It  is  good  to  note  that  the  more  we 
keep  in  harmony  with  natural  laws  the 
more  quiet  we  are  forced  to  be. 

Nature  knows  no  strain.  True  science 
knows  no  strain.  Therefore  a  strained 
high-pitched  voice  does  not  carry  over  the 
telephone  wire  as  well  as  a  low  one. 

If  every  woman  using  the  telephone 
would  remember  this  fact  the  good  ac- 
complished would  be  thricefold.  She 
would  save  her  own  nervous  energy. 
She  would  save  the  ears  of  the  woman 
13  177 


•       NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

at  the  other  end  of  the  wire.  She  would 
make  herself  heard. 

Patience,  gentleness,  firmness  —  a  quiet 
concentration —  all  tell  immeasurably  over 
the  telephone  wire. 

Impatience,  rudeness,  indecision,  and 
diffuseness  blur  communication  by  tele- 
phone even  more  than  they  do  when  one 
is  face  to  face  with  the  person  talking. 

It  is  as  if  the  wire  itself  resented 
these  inhuman  phases  of  humanity  and 
spit  back  at  the  person  who  insulted  it 
by  trying  to  transmit  over  it  such  unin- 
telligent bosh. 

There  are  people  who  feel  that  if 
they  do  not  get  an  immediate  answer  at 
the  telephone  they  have  a  right  to  de- 
mand and  get  good  service  by  means  of 
an  angry  telephonic  sputter. 

The  result  of  this  attempt  to  scold  the 
telephone  girl  is  often  an  impulsive,  angry 
response  on  her  part  —  which  she  may 

178 


TELEPHONES  AND  TELEPHONING 

be  sorry  for  later  on  —  and  if  the  service 
is  more  prompt  for  that  time  it  reacts 
later  to  what  appears  to  be  the  same 
deficiency. 

No  one  was  ever  kept  steadily  up  to 
time  by  angry  scolding.  It  is  against 
reason. 

To  a  demanding  woman  who  is  strained 
and  tired  herself,  a  wait  of  ten  seconds 
seems  ten  minutes.  I  have  heard  such  a 
woman  ring  the  telephone  bell  almost 
without  ceasing  for  fifteen  minutes.  I 
could  hear  her  strain  and  anger  reflected 
in  the  ringing  of  the  bell.  When  finally 
she  ''got  her  party"  the  strain  in  her 
high-pitched  voice  made  it  impossible  for 
her  to  be  clearly  understood.  Then  she 
got  angry  again  because  ''Central"  had 
not  "given  her  a  better  connection,"  and 
finally  came  away  from  the  telephone 
nearly  in  a  state  of  nervous  collapse  and 
insisted  that  the  telephone  would  finally 

179 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

end  her  life.  I  do  not  think  she  once 
suspected  that  the  whole  state  of  fatigue 
which  had  almost  brought  an  illness 
upon  her  was  absolutely  and  entirely  her 
own  fault. 

The  telephone  has  no  more  to  do  with 
it  than  the  floor  has  to  do  with  a  child's 
falling  and  bumping  his  head. 

The  worst  of  this  story  is  that  if  any 
one  had  told  this  woman  that  her  tired 
state  was  all  unnecessary,  it  would  have 
roused  more  strain  and  anger,  more 
fatigue,  and  more  consequent  illness. 

Women  must  begin  to  find  out  their 
own  deficiencies  before  they  are  ready 
to  accept  suggestions  which  can  lead 
to  greater  freedom  and  more  common 
sense. 

Another  place  where  science  and  in- 
human humanity  do  not  blend  is  in  the 
angry  moving  up  and  down  of  the  tele- 
phone hook. 

180 


TELEPHONES  AND  TELEPHONING 

When  the  hook  is  moved  quickly  and 
without  pause  it  does  not  give  time  for 
the  light  before  the  telephone  girl  to 
flash,  therefore  she  cannot  be  reminded 
that  any  one  is  waiting  at  the  other  end. 

When  the  hook  is  removed  with  even 
regularity  and  a  quiet  pause  between 
each  motion  then  she  can  see  the  light 
and  accelerate  her  action  in  getting  ''the 
other  party." 

I  have  seen  a  man  get  so  impatient  at 
not  having  an  immediate  answer  that  he 
rattled  the  hook  up  and  down  so  fast 
and  so  vehemently  as  to  nearly  break  it. 
There  is  something  tremendously  funny 
about  this.  The  man  is  in  a  great  hurry 
to  speak  to  some  one  at  the  other  end 
of  the  telephone,  and  yet  he  takes  every 
means  to  prevent  the  operator  from  know- 
ing what  he  wants  by  rattling  his  hook. 
In  addition  to  this  his  angry  movement 
of   the   hook   is   fast   tending   to    break 

181 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

the  telephone,  so  that  he  cannot  use  it 
at  all.  So  do  we  interfere  with  gaining 
what  we  need  by  wanting  it  overmuch ! 

I  do  not  know  that  there  has  yet  been 
formed  a  telephone  etiquette ;  but  for  the 
use  of  those  who  are  not  well  bred  by 
habit  it  would  be  useful  to  put  such  laws 
on  the  first  page  of  the  telephone  book. 
A  lack  of  consideration  for  others  is  often 
too  evident  in  telephonic  communication. 

A  woman  will  ask  her  maid  to  get  the 
number  of  a  friend's  house  for  her  and 
ask  the  friend  to  come  to  the  telephone, 
and  then  keep  her  friend  waiting  while 
she  has  time  to  be  called  by  the  maid  and 
to  come  to  the  telephone  herself.  This 
method  of  wasting  other  people's  time  is 
not  confined  to  women  alone.  Men  are 
equal  offenders,  and  often  greater  ones, 
for  the  man  at  the  other  end  is  apt  to 
be  more  immediately  busy  than  a  woman 
under  such  circumstances. 

182 


TELEPHONES  AND  TELEPHONING 

To  sum  up :  The  telephone  may  be  the 
means  of  increasing  our  consideration 
for  others;  our  quiet,  decisive  way  of 
getting  good  service;  our  patience,  and, 
through  the  low  voice  placed  close  to 
the  transmitter,  it  may  relieve  us  from 
nervous  strain;  for  nerves  always  relax 
with  the  voice. 

Or  the  telephone  may  be  the  means 
of  making  us  more  selfish  and  self- 
centered,  more  undecided  and  diffuse, 
more  impatient,  more  strained  and 
nervous. 

In  fact,  the  telephones  may  help  us 
toward  health  or  illness.  We  might  even 
say  the  telephone  may  lead  us  toward 
heaven  or  toward  hell.  We  have  our 
choice  of  roads  in  the  way  we  use  it. 

It  is  a  blessed  convenience  and  if  it 
proves  a  curse  —  we  bring  the  curse 
upon   our   own   heads. 

I  speak  of  course  only  of  the  public 

183 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

who  use  the  telephone.  Those  who  serve 
the  pubUc  in  the  use  of  the  telephone 
must  have  many  trials  to  meet,  and,  I 
dare  say,  are  not  always  courteous  and 
patient.  But  certainly  there  can  be  no 
case  of  lagging  or  discourtesy  on  the 
part  of  a  telephone  operator  that  is  not 
promptly  rectified  by  a  quiet,  decided 
appeal  to  the  "desk." 

It  is  invariably  the  nervous  strain  and 
the  anger  that  makes  the  trouble. 

There  may  be  one  of  these  days  a 
school  for  the  better  use  of  the  telephone ; 
but  such  a  school  never  need  be  estab- 
lished if  every  intelligent  man  and  woman 
will  be  his  and  her  own  school  in  appre- 
ciating and  acting  upon  the  power  gained 
if  they  compel  themselves  to  go  with 
science  —  and  never  allow  themselves  to 
go  against  it. 


184 


Chapter  XV 
DonH  Talk 

THERE  is  more  nervous  energy 
wasted,  more  nervous  strain  gen- 
erated, more  real  physical  harm 
done  by  superfluous  talking  than  any 
one  knows,  or  than  any  one  could  possi- 
bly believe  who  had  not  studied  it.  I  am 
not  considering  the  harm  done  by  what 
people  say.  We  all  know  the  disas- 
trous effects  that  follow  a  careless  or 
malicious  use  of  the  tongue.  That  is 
another  question.  I  simply  write  of  the 
physical  power  used  up  and  wasted  by 
mere  superfluous  words,  by  using  one 
hundred  words  where  ten  will  do  —  or 
one  thousand  words  where  none  at  all 
were  needed. 

185 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

I  once  had  been  listening  to  a  friend 
chatter,  chatter,  chatter  to  no  end  for 
an  hour  or  more,  when  the  idea  occurred 
to  me  to  tell  her  of  an  experiment  I  had 
tried  by  which  my  voice  came  more 
easily.  When  I  could  get  an  opportunity 
to  speak,  I  asked  her  if  she  had  ever  tried 
taking  a  long  breath  and  speaking  as  she 
let  the  breath  out.  I  had  to  insist  a  little 
to  keep  her  mind  on  the  suggestion  at 
all,  but  finally  succeeded.  She  took  a 
long  breath  and  then  stopped. 

There  was  perhaps  for  half  a  minute 
a  blessed  silence,  and  then  what  was  my 
surprise  to  hear  her  remark:  ''I  —  I  — 
can't  think  of  anything  to  say."  ''Try 
it  again,"  I  told  her.  She  took  another 
long  breath,  and  again  gave  up  because 
she  could  not  think  of  anything  to  say. 
She  did  not  like  that  little  game  very 
much,  and  thought  she  would  not  make 
another  effort,  and  in  about  three  min- 

186 


DON'T  TALK 

utes  she  began  the  chatter,  and  went  on 
talking  until  some  necessary  interruption 
parted  us. 

This  woman's  talking  w^as  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  a  nervous  habit. 
Her  thought  and  her  words  were  not 
practically  connected  at  all.  She  never 
said  what  she  thought  for  she  never 
thought.  She  never  said  anything  in 
answer  to  what  was  said  to  her,  for  she 
never  listened. 

Nervous  talkers  never  do  listen.  That 
is  one  of  their  most  striking  charac- 
teristics. 

I  knew  of  two  well-known  men  —  both 
great  talkers  —  who  were  invited  to  dine. 
Their  host  thought,  as  each  man  talked 
a  great  deal  and  —  as  he  thought  — 
talked  very  well,  if  they  could  meet  their 
interchange  of  ideas  would  be  most  de- 
lightful. Several  days  later  he  met  one 
of  his  guests  in  the  street  and  asked  how 

187 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

he  liked  the  friend  whom  he  had  met  for 
the  first  time  at  his  house. 

"Very  pleasant,  very  pleasant,"  the 
man  said,  "but  he  talks  too  much." 

Not  long  after  this  the  other  guest 
accosted  him  unexpectedly  in  the  street: 
"For  Heaven's  sake,  don't  ask  me  to 
dine  with  that  Smith  again  —  why,  I 
could  not  get  a  word  in  edgewise." 

Now,  if  only  for  selfish  reasons  a 
man  might  realize  that  he  needs  to  ab- 
sorb as  well  as  give  out,  and  so  could 
make  himself  listen  in  order  to  be  sure 
that  his  neighbor  did  not  get  ahead  of  him. 
But  a  conceited  man,  a  self-centered 
man  or  a  great  talker  will  seldom  or 
never  listen. 

That  being  the  case,  what  can  you 
expect  of  a  woman  who  is  a  nervous 
talker  ?  The  more  tired  such  a  woman  is 
the  more  she  talks ;  the  more  ill  she  is  the 
more  she  talks.    As  the  habit  of  nervous 

188 


DON'T  TALK 

talking  grows  upon  a  woman  it  weakens 
her  mind.  Indeed,  nervous  talking  is  a 
steadily  weakening  process. 

Some  women  talk  to  forget.  If  the}/ 
only  knew  it  was  slow  mental  suicide 
and  led  to  worse  than  death  they  would 
be  quick  to  avoid  such  false  protec- 
tion. If  we  have  anything  we  want 
to  forget  we  can  only  forget  it  by  facing 
it  until  we  have  solved  the  problem  that 
it  places  before  us,  and  then  working 
on,  according  to  our  best  light.  We 
can  never  really  cover  a  thing  up  in  our 
minds  by  talking  constantly  about  some- 
thing else. 

Many  women  think  they  are  going 
to  persuade  you  of  their  point  of  view 
by  talking.  A  woman  comes  to  you 
with  her  head  full  of  an  idea  and  finds 
you  do  not  agree  with  her.  She  will 
talk,  talk,  talk  until  you  are  blind  and 
sick  and  heartily  wish  you  were  deaf,  in 

189 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

order  to  prove  to  you  that  she  is  right 
and  you  are  wrong. 

She  talks  until  you  do  not  care  whether 
you  are  right  or  wrong.  You  only  care 
for  the  blessed  relief  of  silence,  and  when 
she  has  left  you,  she  has  done  all  she  could 
in  that  space  of  time  to  injure  her  point 
of  view.  She  has  simply  buried  anything 
good  that  she  might  have  had  to  say  in  a 
cloud  of  dusty  talk: 

It  is  funny  to  hear  such  a  woman  say 
after  a  long  interview,  "Well,  at  any 
rate,  I  gave  him  a  good  talking  to.  I 
guess  he  will  go  home  and  think  about 
it." 

Think  about  it,  madam.?  He  will  go 
home  with  an  impression  of  rattle  and 
chatter  and  push  that  will  make  him 
dread  the  sight  of  your  face;  and  still 
more  dread  the  sound  of  your  voice,  lest 
he  be  subjected  to  further  interviews. 

Women    sit    at    work    together.      One 

190 


DON'T  TALK 

woman  talks,  talks,  talks  until  her  com- 
panions are  so  worn  with  the  constant 
chatter  that  they  have  neither  head  nor 
nerve  enough  to  do  their  work  well.  If 
they  know  how  to  let  the  chatter  go  on 
and  turn  their  attention  away  from  it,  so 
that  it  makes  no  impression,  they  are 
fortunate  indeed,  and  the  practice  is  most 
useful  to  them.  But  that  does  not  relieve 
the  strain  of  the  nervous  talker  herself; 
she  is  wearing  herself  out  from  day  to  day, 
and  ruining  her  mind  as  well  as  hurting 
the  nerves  and  dispositions  of  those  about 
her  who  do  not  know  how  to  protect 
themselves  from  her  nervous  talk. 

Nervous  talking  is  a  disease. 

Now  the  question  is  how  to  cure  it. 
It  can  be  cured,  but  the  first  necessity  is 
for  a  woman  to  know  she  has  the  disease. 
For,  unlike  other  diseases,  the  cure  does 
not  need  a  physician,  but  must  be  made 
by  the  patient  herself. 

191 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

First,  she  must  know  that  she  has  the 
disease.  Fifty  nervous  talkers  might 
read  this  article,  and  not  one  of  them 
recognize  that  it  is  aimed  straight  at  her. 

The  only  remedy  for  that  is  for  every 
woman  who  reads  to  believe  that  she  is 
a  nervous  talker  until  she  has  watched 
herself  for  a  month  or  more  —  without 
prejudice  —  and  has  discovered  for  a 
certainty  that  she  is  not. 

Then  she  is  safe. 

But  what  if  she  discover  to  her  sur- 
prise and  chagrin  that  she  is  a  nervous 
talker.^  What  is  the  remedy  for  that.^ 
The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  own  up  the 
truth  to  herself  without  equivocation. 
To  make  no  excuses  or  explanations  but 
simply  to  acknowledge  the  fact. 

Then  let  her  aim  straight  at  the  rem- 
edy —  silence  —  steady,  severe,  relaxed 
silence.  Work  from  day  to  day  and  prom- 
ise herself  that  for  that  day  she  will  say 

19^ 


DON'T  TALK 

nothing  but  what  is  absolutely  necessary. 
She  should  not  repress  the  words  that 
want  to  come,  but  when  she  takes  breath 
to  speak  she  must  not  allow  the  sentence 
to  come  out  of  her  mouth,  but  must  in- 
stead relax  all  over,  as  far  as  it  is  possible, 
and  take  a  good,  long,  quiet  breath.  The 
next  time  she  wants  to  speak,  even  if  she 
forgets  so  far  as  to  get  half  the  sentence 
out  of  her  mouth,  stop  it,  relax,  and  take 
a  long  breath. 

The  mental  concentration  necessary 
to  cure  one's  self  of  nervous  talking  will 
gather  together  a  mind  that  was  gradually 
becoming  dissipated  with  the  nervous 
talking  habit,  and  so  the  life  and  strength 
of  the  mind  can  be  saved. 

And,  after  that  habit  has  been  cured, 
the  habit  of  quiet  thinking  will  begin,  and 
what  is  said  will  be  worth  while. 


13  193 


Chapter  XVI 

^'Why  Fuss  so  Much  About  What 
I  Eatr' 

I  KNOW  a  woman  who  insisted  that 
it  was  impossible  for  her  to  eat 
strawberries  because  they  did  not 
agree  with  her.  A  friend  told  her  that 
that  was  simply  a  habit  of  her  mind. 
Once,  at  a  time  when  her  stomach  was 
tired  or  not  in  good  condition  for  some 
other  reason,  strawberries  had  not  agreed 
with  her,  and  from  that  time  she  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  she  could  not 
eat  strawberries.  When  she  was  con- 
vinced by  her  friend  that  her  belief  that 
strawberries  did  not  agree  with  her  was 
merely  in  her  own  idea,  and  not  actually 
true,  she  boldly  ate  a  plate  of  straw- 
berries.    That  night  she  woke  with  indi- 

194 


WHY  FUSS? 

gestion,  and  the  next  morning  she  said: 
"You  see,  I  told  you  they  would  not 
agree  with  me." 

But  her  friend  answered:  "Why,  of 
course  you  could  not  expect  them  to 
agree  right  away,  could  you?  Now  try 
eating  them  again  to-day." 

This  little  lady  was  intelligent  enough 
to  want  the  strawberries  to  agree  mth 
her  and  to  be  willing  to  do  her  part  to 
adjust  herself  to  them,  so  she  tried  again 
and  ate  them  the  next  day;  and  now 
she  can  eat  them  every  day  right  through 
the  strawberry  season  and  is  all  the  better 
for  it. 

This  is  the  fact  that  we  want  to  under- 
stand thoroughly  and  to  look  out  for. 
If  we  are  impressed  with  the  idea  that 
any  one  food  does  not  agree  with  us, 
whenever  we  think  of  that  food  we  con- 
tract, and  especially  our  stomachs  con- 
tract.     Now    if    our    stomachs    contract 

195 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

when  a  food  that  we  believe  to  disagree 
with  us  is  merely  mentioned,  of  course 
they  would  contract  all  the  more  when 
w^e  ate  it.  Naturally  our  digestive  organs 
would  be  handicapped  by  the  contraction 
which  came  from  our  attitude  of  mind 
and,  of  course,  the  food  would  appear 
not  to  agree  with  us. 

Take,  for  instance,  people  who  are 
born  with  peculiar  prenatal  impressions 
about  their  food.  A  woman  whom  I 
have  in  mind  could  not  take  milk  nor 
cream  nor  butter  nor  anything  with  milk 
or  cream  or  butter  in  it.  She  seemed 
really  proud  of  her  milk-and-cream  an- 
tipathy. She  would  air  it  upon  all  oc- 
casions, when  she  could  do  so  without 
being  positively  discourteous,  and  often 
she  came  very  near  the  edge  of  dis- 
courtesy. I  never  saw  her  even  appear 
to  make  an  effort  to  overcome  it,  and  it 
is  perfectly  true  that  a  prenatal  impres- 

196 


WHY  FUSS? 

sion  like  that  can  be  overcome  as  entirely 
as  can  a  personally  acquired  impression, 
although  it  may  take  a  longer  time  and 
a  more  persistent  effort. 

This  anti-milk-and-cream  lady  was  at 
work  every  day  over-emphasizing  her 
milk-and-cream  contractions;  whereas  if 
she  had  put  the  same  force  into  dropping 
the  milk-and-cream  contraction  she  would 
have  been  using  her  will  to  great  advan- 
tage, and  would  have  helped  herself  in 
many  other  ways  as  well  as  in  gaining 
the  ability  to  take  normally  a  very  health- 
ful food.  We  cannot  hold  one  contrac- 
tion without  having  its  influence  draw 
us  into  many  others.  We  cannot  give 
our  attention  to  dropping  one  contrac- 
tion without  having  the  influence  of  that 
one  effort  expand  us  in  many  other  ways. 
Watch  people  when  they  refuse  food  that 
is  passed  them  at  table;  you  can  see 
whether  they  refuse  and  at  the  same  time 

197 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

contract  against  the  food,  or  whether 
they  refuse  with  no  contraction  at  all. 
I  have  seen  an  expression  of  mild  loath- 
ing on  some  women's  faces  when  food 
was  passed  which  "did  not  agree  with 
them,"  but  they  were  quite  unconscious 
that  their  expressions  had  betrayed  them. 
Now,  it  is  another  fact  that  the  con- 
traction of  the  stomach  at  one  form  of 
food  will  interfere  with  the  good  digestion 
of  another  form.  When  cauliflower  has 
been  passed  to  us  and  we  contract  against 
it  how  can  we  expect  our  stomachs  to 
recover  from  that  contraction  in  time  to 
digest  perfectly  the  next  vegetable  which 
is  passed  and  which  we  may  like  very 
much  ?  It  may  be  said  that  we  expand 
to  the  vegetable  we  like,  and  that  imme- 
diately counteracts  the  former  contrac- 
tion to  the  vegetable  which  we  do  not 
like.  That  is  true  only  to  a  certain 
extent,   for  the   tendency   to   cauliflower 

198 


WHY  FUSS? 

contraction  is  there  in  the  back  of  our 
brains  influencing  our  stomachs  all  the 
time,  until  we  have  actually  used  our 
wills  consciously  to  drop  it. 

Edwin  Booth  used  to  be  troubled  very 
much  with  indigestion ;  he  suffered  keenly 
from  it.  One  day  he  went  to  dine  with 
some  intimate  friends,  and  before  the 
dinner  began  his  hostess  said  with  a  very 
smiling  face:  "Now,  Mr.  Booth,  I  have 
been  especially  careful  with  this  dinner 
not  to  have  one  thing  that  you  cannot 
digest." 

The  host  echoed  her  with  a  hearty  "Yes, 
Mr.  Booth,  everything  that  will  come  to 
the  table  is  good  for  your  digestion." 

The  words  made  a  very  happy  impres- 
sion on  Mr.  Booth.  First  there  was  the 
kind,  sympathetic  friendliness  of  his  hosts ; 
and  then  the  strong  suggestion  they  had 
given  him  that  their  food  would  agree 
with  him.     Then  there  was  very  happy 

199 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

and  interesting  talk  during  the  whole 
time  that  they  were  at  table  and  afterward. 

Mr.  Booth  ate  a  hearty  dinner  and, 
true  to  the  words  of  his  host  and  hostess, 
not  one  single  thing  disagreed  with  him. 
And  yet  at  that  dinner,  although  care 
had  been  taken  to  have  it  wholesome, 
there  were  served  things  that  under  other 
conditions  would  have  disagreed. 

While  we  should  aim  always  to  eat 
wholesome  food,  it  is  really  not  so  much 
the  food  which  makes  the  trouble  as  the 
attitude  we  take  toward  it  and  the  way 
we  test  it. 

All  the  contractions  which  are  made 
by  our  fussing  about  food  interfere  with 
our  circulation;  the  interference  w^th 
our  circulation  makes  us  liable  to  take 
cold,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  more  than 
half  the  colds  that  women  have  are  caused 
principally  by  wrong  eating.  Somewhat 
akin    to   grandmother's   looking  for  her 

200 


WHY  FUSS? 

spectacles  when  all  the  time  they  are 
pushed  to  the  top  of  her  head  is  the  way 
women  fuss  about  their  eating  and  then 
wonder  why  it  is  that  they  cannot  seem 
to  stand  drafts. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  our  food 
should  be  thoroughly  masticated  before 
it  goes  into  our  stomachs.  There  is  no 
doubt  but  that  the  first  process  of  diges- 
tion should  be  in  our  mouths.  The  relish 
which  we  get  for  our  food  by  masticating 
it  properly  is  greater  and  also  helps 
tow^ard  digesting  it  truly.  All  this  can- 
not be  over-emphasized  if  it  is  taken  in 
the  right  way.  But  there  is  an  extreme 
which  perhaps  has  not  been  thought  of 
and  for  which  happily  I  have  an  example 
that  will  illustrate  what  I  want  to  prove. 
I  know  a  woman  who  was,  so  to  speak, 
daft  on  the  subject  of  health.  She  at- 
tended to  all  points  of  health  with  such 
minute  detail  that  she  seemed  to  have 

201 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

lost  all  idea  of  why  we  should  be  healthy. 
One  of  her  ways  of  over-emphasizing  the 
road  to  health  was  a  very  careful  mastica- 
tion of  her  food.  She  chewed  and  chewed 
and  chewed  and  chewed,  and  the  result 
was  that  she  so  strained  her  stomach 
with  her  chewing  that  she  brought  on 
severe  indigestion,  simply  as  a  result 
of  an  overactive  effort  toward  diges- 
tion. This  was  certainly  a  case  of 
''vaulting  ambition,  which  o'erleaps  it- 
self, and  falls  on  the  other."  And  it 
was  not  unique. 

The  over-emphasis  of  "What  shall  I 
eat  ?  How  much  shall  I  eat  ?  How  often 
shall  I  eat.?  When  shall  I  eat.?  How 
shall  I  eat.?"  —  all  extreme  attention  to 
these  questions  is  just  as  liable  to  bring 
chronic  indigestion  as  a  reckless  neglect 
of  them  altogether  is  liable  to  upset  a 
good,  strong  stomach  and  keep  it  upset. 
The  woman  who  chewed  herself  into  in- 

202 


WHY  FUSS? 

digestion  fussed  herself  into  it,  too,  by 
constantly  talking  about  what  was  not 
healthful  to  eat.  Her  breakfast,  which 
she  took  alone,  was  for  a  time  the  dryest- 
looking  meal  I  ever  saw.  It  was  enough 
to  take  away  any  one's  healthy  relish  just 
to  look  at  it,  if  he  was  not  forewarned. 

Now  our  relish  is  one  of  our  most 
blessed  gifts.  When  we  relish  our  food 
our  stomachs  can  digest  it  wholesomely. 
When  we  do  not  our  stomachs  will  not 
produce  the  secretions  necessary  to  the 
most  wholesome  digestion.  Constant  fuss- 
ing about  our  food  takes  away  our  relish. 
A  gluttonous  dwelling  upon  our  food 
takes  away  our  relish.  Relish  is  a  deli- 
cate gift,  and  as  we  respect  it  truly,  as 
we  do  not  degrade  it  to  selfish  ends  nor 
kill  it  with  selfish  fastidiousness,  it  grows 
upon  us  and  is  in  its  place  like  any  other 
fine  perception,  and  is  as  greatly  useful 
to  the  health  of  our  bodies  as  our  keener 

203 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

and    deeper    perceptions    are    useful    to 
the  health  of  our  minds. 

Then  there  is  the  question  of  being 
sure  that  our  stomachs  are  well  rested 
before  we  give  them  any  work  to  do, 
and  being  sure  that  we  are  quiet  enough 
after  eating  to  give  our  stomachs  the 
best  opportunity  to  begin  their  work. 
Here  again  one  extreme  is  just  as  harm- 
ful as  the  other.  I  knew  a  woman  who 
had  what  might  be  called  the  fixed  idea 
of  health,  who  always  used  to  sit  bolt 
upright  in  a  high -backed  chair  for  half 
an  hour  after  dinner,  and  refuse  to  speak 
or  to  be  spoken  to  in  order  that  "digestion 
might  start  in  properly."  If  I  had  been 
her  stomach  I  should  have  said :  ''Madam, 
when  you  have  got  through  giving  me 
your  especial  attention  I  will  begin  my 
work  —  which,  by  the  way,  is  not  your 
work  but  mine!"  And,  virtually,  that 
is   what  her   stomach   did   say.     Sitting 

204 


WHY  FUSS? 

bolt  upright  and  consciously  waiting  for 
your  food  to  begin  digestion  is  an  over- 
attention  to  what  is  none  of  your  busi- 
ness, which  contracts  your  brain,  con- 
tracts your  stomach  and  stops  its 
work. 

Our  business  is  only  to  fulfill  the  con- 
ditions rightly.  The  French  workmen 
do  that  when  they  sit  quietly  after  a 
meal  talking  of  their  various  interests. 
Any  one  can  fulfill  the  conditions  prop- 
erly by  keeping  a  little  quiet,  having  some 
pleasant  chat,  reading  a  bright  story  or 
taking  life  easy  in  any  quiet  way  for  half 
an  hour.  Or,  if  work  must  begin  directly 
after  eating,  begin  it  quietly.  But  this 
feeling  that  it  is  our  business  to  attend 
to  the  working  functions  of  our  stomachs 
is  officious  and  harmful.  We  must 
fulfill  the  conditions  and  then  forget 
our  stomachs.  If  our  stomachs  remind 
us   of   themselves   by  some  misbehavior 

205 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

we  must  seek  for  the  cause  and  remedy 
it,  but  we  should  not  on  any  account  feel 
that  the  cause  is  necessarily  in  the  food 
we  have  eaten.  It  may  be,  and  probably 
often  is,  entirely  back  of  that.  A  quick, 
sharp  resistance  to  something  that  is  said 
will  often  cause  indigestion.  In  that  case 
we  must  stop  resisting  and  not  blame  the 
food.  A  dog  was  once  made  to  swallow 
a  little  bullet  with  his  food  and  then  an 
X-ray  was  thrown  on  to  his  stomach 
in  order  that  the  process  of  digestion 
might  be  watched  by  means  of  the  bullet. 
When  the  dog  was  made  angry  the  bullet 
stopped,  which  meant  that  the  digestion 
stopped ;  when  the  dog  was  over-excited 
in  any  way  digestion  stopped.  When  he 
was  calmed  down  it  went  on  again. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  we  should 
learn  to  meet  life  without  useless  resist- 
ance, and  the  health  of  our  stomachs  is 
not  the  least. 

206 


WHY   FUSS? 

It  would  surprise  most  people  if  they 
could  know  how  much  unnecessary  strain 
they  put  on  their  stomachs  by  eating  too 
much.  A  nervous  invalid  had  a  very 
large  appetite.  She  was  helped  twice, 
sometimes  three  times,  to  meat  and 
vegetables  at  dinner.  She  thought  that 
what  she  deemed  her  very  healthy  appe- 
tite was  a  great  blessing  to  her,  and 
often  remarked  upon  it,  as  also  upon 
her  idea  that  so  much  good,  nourishing 
food  must  be  helping  to  make  her  well. 
And  yet  she  wondered  why  she  did  not 
gain  faster. 

Now  the  truth  of  the  matter  was  that 
this  invalid  had  a  nervous  appetite.  Not 
only  did  she  not  need  one  third  of  the 
food  she  ate,  but  indeed  the  other  two 
thirds  was  doing  her  positive  harm.  The 
tax  which  she  put  upon  her  stomach  to 
digest  so  much  food  drained  her  nerves 
every   day,    and   of   course   robbed   her 

207 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

brain,  so  that  she  ate  and  ate  and 
wept  and  wept  with  nervous  depres- 
sion. When  it  was  suggested  to  her  by 
a  friend  who  understood  nerves  that  she 
would  get  better  very  much  faster  if  she 
would  eat  very  much  less  she  made  a 
rule  to  take  only  one  helping  of  anything, 
no  matter  how  much  she  might  feel  that 
she  wanted  another.  Very  soon  she 
began  to  gain  enough  to  see  for  herself 
that  she  had  been  keeping  herself  ill 
with  overeating,  and  it  was  not  many 
days  before  she  did  not  want  a  second 
helping. 

Nervous  appetites  are  not  uncommon 
even  among  women  who  consider  them- 
selves pretty  well.  Probably  there  are 
not  five  in  a  hundred  among  all  the  well- 
fed  men  and  women  in  this  country  who 
would  not  be  more  healthy  if  they  ate 
less. 

Then   there   are   food   notions   to   be 

208 


WHY   FUSS? 

looked  out  for  and  out  of  which  any  one 
can  relax  by  giving  a  little  intelligent 
attention  to  the  task. 

''I  do  not  like  eggs.  I  am  tired  of 
them."  "Dear,  dear  me!  I  ate  so 
much  ice  cream  that  it  made  me  ill,  and 
it  has  made  me  ill  to  think  of  it  ever 
since." 

Relax,  drop  the  contraction,  pretend 
you  had  never  tasted  ice  cream  before, 
and  try  to  eat  a  little  —  not  for  the  sake 
of  the  ice  cream,  but  for  the  sake  of  get- 
ting that  knot  out  of  your  stomach. 

"But,"  you  will  say,  "can  every  one 
eat  everything .?  " 

"Yes,"  the  answer  is,  "everything  that 
is  really  good,  wholesome  food  is  all 
right  for  anybody  to  eat." 

But  you  say:  "Won't  you  allow  for 
difference  of  tastes  .P" 

And  the  answer  to  that  is:  "Of  course 
we  can  like  some  foods  more  than  others, 
14  209 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

but  there  is  a  radical  difference  between 
unprejudiced  preferences  and  prejudiced 
dislikes." 

Our  stomachs  are  all  right  if  we  will 
but  fulfill  their  most  simple  conditions 
and  then  leave  them  alone.  If  we  treat 
them  right  they  will  tell  us  what  is  good 
for  them  and  what  is  not  good  for  them, 
and  if  we  will  only  pay  attention,  obey 
them  as  a  matter  of  course  without  com- 
ment and  then  forget  them,  there  need 
be  no  more  fuss  about  food  and  very 
much  less  nervous  irritability. 


210 


Chapter  XVII 

Take  Care  of  Your  Stomach 

WE  all  know  that  we  have  a  great 
deal  to  do.  Some  of  us  have 
to  work  all  day  to  earn  our 
bread  and  butter  and  then  work  a  good 
part  of  the  night  to  make  our  clothes. 
Some  of  us  have  to  stand  all  day  be- 
hind a  counter.  Some  of  us  have  to 
sit  all  day  and  sew  for  others,  and  all 
night  to  sew  for  ourselves  and  our  chil- 
dren. Most  of  us  have  to  do  work  that 
is  necessary  or  work  that  is  self-imposed. 
Many  of  us  feel  busy  without  really 
being  busy  at  all.  But  how  many  of  us 
realize  that  while  we  are  doing  work 
outside,  our  bodies  themselves  have  good, 
steady  work  to  do  inside. 

211 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Our  lungs  have  to  take  oxygen  from 
the  air  and  give  it  to  our  blood;  our 
blood  has  to  carry  it  all  through  our 
bodies  and  take  away  the  waste  by 
means  of  the  steady  pumping  of  our 
hearts.  Our  stomachs  must  digest  the 
food  put  into  them,  give  the  nourishment 
in  it  to  the  blood,  and  see  that  the  waste 
is  cast  off. 

All  this  work  is  wholesome  and  good, 
and  goes  on  steadily,  giving  us  health 
and  strength  and  new  power;  but  if 
we,  through  mismanagement,  make  heart 
or  lungs  or  stomach  work  harder  than 
they  should,  then  they  must  rob  us  of 
power  to  accomplish  what  we  give  them 
to  do,  and  we  blame  them,  instead  of 
blaming  ourselves  for  being  hard  and 
unjust  taskmasters. 

The  strain  in  a  stomach  necessary  to 
the  digesting  of  too  much  food,  or 
the   wrong    kind    of    food,  makes    itself 

212 


TAKE   CARE   OF  YOUR  STOMACH 

felt  in  strain  all  through  the  whole 
system. 

I  knew  a  woman  whose  conscience 
was  troubling  her  very  greatly.  She 
was  sure  she  had  done  many  very  selfish 
things  for  which  there  was  no  excuse, 
and  that  she  herself  was  greatly  to  blame 
for  other  people's  troubles.  This  was  a 
very  acute  attack  of  conscience,  accom- 
panied by  a  very  severe  stomach  ache. 
The  doctor  was  called  in  and  gave  her  an 
emetic.  She  threw  a  large  amount  of 
undigested  food  from  her  stomach,  and 
after  that  relief  the  weight  on  her  con- 
science was  lifted  entirely  and  she  had 
nothing  more  to  blame  herself  with  than 
any  ordinary,  wholesome  woman  must 
have  to  look  out  for  every  day  of  her  life. 

This  is  a  true  story  and  should  be 
practically  useful  to  readers  who  need  it. 
This  woman's  stomach  had  been  given 
too  much  to  do.     It  worked  hard  to  do 

213 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

its  work  well,  and  had  to  rob  the  brain 
and  nervous  system  in  the  effort.  This 
effort  brought  strain  to  the  whole  brain, 
which  was  made  evident  in  the  region 
of  the  conscience.  It  might  have  come 
out  in  some  other  form.  It  might  have 
appeared  in  irritability.  It  might  even 
have  shown  itself  in  downright  ugliness. 

Whatever  the  effects  are,  whether  ex- 
aggerated conscience,  exaggerated  anx- 
iety, or  irritability,  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  trouble  in  such  cases  as  I  refer 
to  is  in  the  fact  that  the  stomach  has 
been  given  too  much  to  do. 

We  give  the  stomach  too  much  to  do 
if  we  put  a  great  deal  of  food  into  it 
when  it  is  tired.  We  give  it  too  much  to 
do  if  we  put  into  it  the  wrong  kind  of 
food.  We  give  it  too  much  to  do  if  we 
insist  upon  working  hard  ourselves,  either 
with  body  or  brain,  directly  after  a  hearty 
meal. 

214 


TAKE  CARE  OF  YOUR  STOMACH 

No  matter  how  busy  we  are  we  can 
protect  our  stomachs  against  each  and 
all  of  these  three  causes  of  trouble. 

If  a  woman  is  very  tired  her  stomach 
must  necessarily  be  very  tired  also.  If 
she  can  remember  that  at  such  times 
even  though  she  may  be  very  hungry, 
her  body  is  better  nourished  if  she 
takes  slowly  a  cup  of  hot  milk,  and 
waits  until  she  is  more  rested  before 
taking  solid  food,  than  if  she  ate  a  hearty 
meal.  It  will  save  a  strain,  and  perhaps 
eventually  severe  illness. 

If  it  is  possible  to  rest  and  do  absolutely 
nothing  for  half  an  hour  before  a  meal, 
and  for  half  an  hour  after  that  insures 
the  best  work  for  our  digestion.  If  one 
is  pretty  well,  and  cannot  spare  the  half 
hour,  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  will  do,  un- 
less there  is  a  great  deal  of  fatigue  to  be 
conquered. 

If   it   is   necessary   to   work   right   up 

215 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

to  mealtime,  let  up  a  little  before  stopping. 
As  the  time  for  dinner  approaches  do 
not  work  quite  so  hard;  the  work  will 
not  lose ;  in  the  end  it  will  gain  —  and 
when  you  begin  work  again  begin  lightly, 
and  get  into  the  thick  of  it  gradu- 
ally. That  gives  your  stomach  a  good 
chance. 

If  possible  get  a  long  rest  before  the 
last  meal,  and  if  your  day  is  very  busy, 
it  is  better  to  have  the  heartiest  meal 
at  the  end  of  it,  to  take  a  good  rest 
afterward  and  then  a  walk  in  the  fresh 
air,  which  may  be  long  or  short,  accord- 
ing to  what  other  work  you  have  to 
do  or  according  to  how  tired  you  are. 

I  know  many  women  will  say:  ^'But  I 
am  tired  all  the  time;  if  I  waited  to 
rest  before  I  ate,  I  should  starve." 

The  answer  to  that  is  "protect  your 
stomach  as  well  as  you  can.  If  you 
cannot  rest  before  and  after  each  meal 

216 


TAKE  CARE  OF  YOUR  STOMACH 

try  to  arrange  some  way  by  which  you 
can  get  rid  of  a  little  fatigue." 

If  you  do  this  with  attention  and 
interest  you  will  find  gradually  that 
you  are  less  tired  all  the  time,  and  as 
you  keep  on  steadily  toward  the  right 
path,  you  may  be  surprised  some  day 
to  discover  that  you  are  only  tired  half 
the  time,  and  perhaps  even  reach  the 
place  where  the  tired  feeling  will  be  the 
exception. 

It  takes  a  good  while  to  get  our  mis- 
used stomachs  into  wholesome  ,ways, 
but  if  we  are  persistent  and  intelligent 
we  can  surely  do  it,  and  the  rehef  to 
the  overstrained  stomach  —  as  I  have 
said  —  means  rehef  to  the  whole  body. 

Resting  before  and  after  meals  amounts 
to  very  little,  however,  if  we  eat  food 
that  is  not  nourishing. 

Some  people  are  so  far  out  of  the 
normal    way    of   eating   that   they   have 

217 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

lost  a  wholesome  sense  of  what  is  good 
for  them,  and  live  in  a  chronic  state 
of  disordered  stomach,  which  means  a 
chronic  state  of  disordered  nerves  and 
disposition.  If  such  persons  could  for 
one  minute  literally  experience  the  free- 
dom of  a  woman  whose  body  was  truly 
and  thoroughly  nourished,  the  contrast 
from  the  abnormal  to  the  normal  would 
make  them  dizzy.  If,  however,  they 
stayed  in  the  normal  place  long  enough 
to  get  over  the  dizziness,  the  freedom 
of  health  would  be  so  great  a  delight 
that  food  that  was  not  nourishing  would 
be  nauseous  to  them. 

Most  of  us  are  near  enough  the  normal 
to  know  the  food  that  is  best  for  us, 
through  experience  of  suffering  from  food 
which  is  not  best  for  us,  as  well  as  through 
good  natural  instinct. 

If  we  would  learn  from  the  normal 
working  of  the  involuntary  action  of  our 

218 


TAKE   CARE   OF  YOUR  STOMACH 

organs,  it  might  help  us  greatly  toward 
working  more  wholesomely  in  all  our 
voluntary  actions. 

If  every  woman  who  reads  this  article 
would  study  not  to  interfere  with  the 
most  healthy  action  of  her  own  stomach, 
her  reward  after  a  few  weeks'  persistent 
care  would  be  not  only  a  greater  power 
for  work,  but  a  greater  power  for  good, 
healthy,  recuperative  rest. 


219 


Chapter  XVIII 
About  Faces 

WATCH  the  faces  as  you  walk 
along  the  street !  If  you  get 
the  habit  of  noticing,  your  ob- 
servations will  grow  keener.  It  is  sur- 
prising to  see  how  seldom  we  find  a  really 
quiet  face.  I  do  not  mean  that  there 
should  be  no  lines  in  the  face.  We  are 
here  in  this  world  at  school  and  we  can- 
not have  any  real  schooling  unless  we 
have  real  experiences.  We  cannot  have 
real  experiences  without  suffering,  and 
suffering  which  comes  from  the  discipline 
of  life  and  results  in  character  leaves 
lines  in  our  faces.  It  is  the  lines  made 
by  unnecessary  strain  to  which  I  refer. 

Strange  to  say  the  unquiet  faces  come 
mostly  from  shallow  feeling.    Usually  the 

220 


ABOUT  FACES 

deeper  the  feeling  the  less  strain  there  is 
on  the  face.  A  face  may  look  troubled, 
it  may  be  full  of  pain,  without  a  touch 
of  that  strain  which  comes  from  shallow 
worry  or  excitement. 

The  strained  expression  takes  char- 
acter out  of  the  face,  it  weakens  it,  and 
certainly  it  detracts  greatly  from  what- 
ever natural  beauty  there  may  have  been 
to  begin  with.  The  expression  which 
comes  from  pain  or  any  suffering  well 
borne  gives  character  to  the  face  and 
adds  to  its  real  beauty  as  well  as  its 
strength. 

To  remove  the  strained  expression  we 
must  remove  the  strain  behind;  there- 
fore the  hardest  work  we  have  to  do  is 
below  the  surface.  The  surface  work  is 
comparatively  easy. 

I  know  a  woman  whose  face  is  quiet 
and  placid.  The  lines  are  really  beauti- 
ful, but  they  are  always  the  same.     This 

221 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

woman  used  to  watch  herself  in  the  glass 
until  she  had  her  face  as  quiet  and  free 
from  lines  as  she  could  get  it  —  she  used 
even  to  arrange  the  corners  of  her  mouth 
with  her  fingers  until  they  had  just  the 
right  droop. 

Then  she  observed  carefully  how  her 
face  felt  with  that  placid  expression  and 
studied  to  keep  it  always  with  that  feeling, 
until  by  and  by  her  features  were  fixed 
and  now  the  placid  face  is  always  there, 
for  she  has  established  in  her  brain  an 
automatic  vigilance  over  it  that  will  not 
allow  the  muscles  once  to  get  "out  of 
drawing." 

What  kind  of  an  old  woman  this  ac- 
quaintance of  mine  will  make  I  do  not 
know.  I  am  curious  to  see  her  —  but 
now  she  certainly  is  a  most  remarkable 
hypocrite.  The  strain  in  behind  the 
mask  of  a  face  which  she  has  made  for 
herself  must  be  something  frightful.    And 

222 


ABOUT  FACES 

indeed  I  believe  it  is,  for  she  is  ill  most 
of  the  time  —  and  what  could  keep  one 
in  nervous  illness  more  entirely  than 
this  deep  interior  strain  which  is  neces- 
sary to  such  external  appearance  of 
placidity. 

There  comes  to  my  mind  at  once  a 
very  comical  illustration  of  something 
quite  akin  to  this  although  at  first  thought 
it  seems  almost  the  reverse.  A  woman 
who  constantly  talked  of  the  preemi- 
nency  of  mind  over  matter,  and  the  im- 
possibility of  being  moved  by  external 
circumstances  to  any  one  who  believed 
as  she  did  —  this  woman  I  saw  very 
angry. 

She  was  sitting  with  her  face  drawn 
in  a  hundred  cross  lines  and  all  askew 
with  her  anger.  She  had  been  spouting 
and  sputtering  what  she  called  her 
righteous  indignation  for  some  min- 
utes, when  after  a  brief  pause  and  with 

223 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

the  angry  expression  still  on  her  face 
she  exclaimed:  *'Well,  I  don't  care,  it's 
all  peace  within." 

I  doubt  if  my  masked  lady  would 
ever  have  declared  to  herself  or  to  any 
one  else  that  ''it  was  all  peace  within." 
The  angry  woman  was  —  without  doubt 
■ — the  deeper  hypocrite,  but  the  masked 
woman  had  become  rigid  in  her  hypoc- 
risy. I  do  not  know  which  was  the 
weaker  of  the  two,  probably  the  one  who 
was  deceiving  herself. 

But  to  return  to  those  drawn,  strained 
lines  we  see  on  the  people  about  us. 
They  do  not  come  from  hard  work  or 
deep  thought.  They  come  from  un- 
necessary contractions  about  the  work. 
If  we  use  our  wills  consistently  and 
steadily  to  drop  such  contractions,  the 
result  is  a  more  quiet  and  restful  way  of 
living,  and  so  quieter  and  more  attractive 
faces. 

224 


ABOUT  FACES 

This  unquietness  comes  especially  in 
the  eyes.  It  is  a  rare  thing  to  see  a  really 
quiet  eye;  and  very  pleasant  and  beauti- 
ful it  is  when  we  do  see  it.  And  the  more 
we  see  and  observe  the  unquiet  eyes  and 
the  unquiet  faces  the  better  worth  while 
it  seems  to  work  to  have  ours  more  quiet, 
but  not  to  put  on  a  mask,  or  be  in  any 
other  way  a  hypocrite. 

The  exercise  described  in  a  previous 
chapter  will  help  to  bring  a  quiet  face. 
We  must  drop  our  heads  with  a  sense 
of  letting  every  strain  go  out  of  our  faces, 
and  then  let  our  heads  carry  our  bodies 
down  as  far  as  possible,  dropping  strain 
all  the  time,  and  while  rising  slowly  we 
must  take  the  same  care  to  drop  all 
strain. 

In  taking  the  long  breath,  we  must 
inhale  without  effort,  and  exhale  so 
easily  that  it  seems  as  if  the  breath 
went  out  of  itself,  like  the  balloons  that 

15  225 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

children  blow  up  and  then  watch  them 
shrink  as  the  air  leaves  them. 

Five  minutes  a  day  is  very  little  time 
to  spend  to  get  a  quiet  face,  but  just 
that  five  minutes  —  if  followed  consist- 
ently —  will  make  us  so  much  more 
sensitive  to  the  unquiet  that  we  will 
sooner  or  later  turn  away  from  it  as  by 
a  natural  instinct. 


226 


Chapter  XIX 
About  Voices 

I  KNEW  an  old  German  —  a  won- 
derful teacher  of  the  speaking  voice 
—  who  said  '*the  ancients  believed 
that  the  soul  of  the  man  is  here"  — 
pointing  to  the  pit  of  his  stomach.  "I 
do  not  know,"  and  he  shrugged  his 
shoulders  with  expressive  interest,  "it 
may  be  and  it  may  not  be  —  but  I  know 
the  soul  of  the  voice  is  here  —  and  you 
Americans  —  you  squeeze  the  life  out  of 
the  word  in  your  throat  and  it  is  born 
dead." 

That  old  artist  spoke  the  truth  —  we 
Americans  —  most  of  us  —  do  squeeze 
the  life  out  of  our  words  and  they  are 
born  dead.  We  squeeze  the  life  out  by 
the  strain  which  runs  all  through  us  and 

227 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

reflects  itself  especially  in  our  voices. 
Our  throats  are  tense  and  closed;  our 
stomachs  are  tense  and  strained;  with 
many  of  us  the  word  is  dead  before  it 
is  born. 

Watch  people  talking  in  a  very  noisy 
place;  hear  how  they  scream  at  the 
top  of  their  lungs  to  get  above  the  noise. 
Think  of  the  amount  of  nervous  force 
they  use  in  their  efforts  to  be  heard. 

Now  really  when  we  are  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  noise  and  want  to  be  heard, 
what  we  have  to  do  is  to  pitch  our  voices 
on  a  different  key  from  the  noise  about 
us.  We  can  be  heard  as  well,  and  better, 
if  we  pitch  our  voices  on  a  lower  key 
than  if  we  pitch  them  on  a  higher  key ;  and 
to  pitch  your  voice  on  a  low  key  requires 
very  much  less  effort  than  to  strain  to  a 
high  one. 

I  can  imagine  talking  with  some  one 
for  half  an  hour  in  a  noisy  factory  —  for 

228 


ABOUT  VOICES 

instance  —  and  being  more  rested  at  the 
end  of  the  half  hour  than  at  the  begin- 
ning. Because  to  pitch  your  voice  low 
you  must  drop  some  superfluous  tension 
and  dropping  superfluous  tension  is 
always  restful. 

I  beg  any  or  all  of  my  readers  to  try 
this  experiment  the  next  time  they  have 
to  talk  with  a  friend  in  a  noisy  street.  At 
first  the  habit  of  screaming  above  the 
noise  of  the  wheels  is  strong  on  us  and 
it  seems  impossible  that  we  should  be 
heard  if  we  speak  below  it.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  pitch  our  voices  low  and  keep 
them  there.  But  if  we  persist  until  we 
have  formed  a  new  habit,  the  change  is 
delightful. 

There  is  one  other  difficulty  in  the 
way;  whoever  is  listening  to  us  may 
be  in  the  habit  of  hearing  a  voice  at  high 
tension  and  so  find  it  difficult  at  first  to 
adjust  his  ear  to  the  lower  voice  and  will 

229 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

in  consequence  insist  that  the  lower  tone 
cannot  be  heard  as  easily. 

It  seems  curious  that  our  ears  can  be 
so  much  engaged  in  expecting  screaming 
that  they  cannot  without  a  positive 
effort  of  the  mind  readjust  in  order  to 
listen  to  a  lower  tone.  But  it  is  so.  And, 
therefore,  we  must  remember  that  to  be 
thoroughly  successful  in  speaking  intelli- 
gently below  the  noise  we  must  beg  our 
listeners  to  change  the  habit  of  their 
ears  as  we  ourselves  must  change  the 
pitch  of  our  voices. 

The  result  both  to  speaker  and  listener 
is  worth  the  effort  ten  times  over. 

As  we  habitually  lower  the  pitch  of 
our  voices  our  words  cease  gradually 
to  be  ''born  dead."  With  a  low-pitched 
voice  everything  pertaining  to  the  voice 
is  more  open  and  flexible  and  can  react 
more  immediately  to  whatever  may  be 
in  our  minds  to  express. 

230 


ABOUT  VOICES 

Moreover,  the  voice  itself  may  react 
back  again  upon  our  dispositions.  If 
a  woman  gets  excited  in  an  argument, 
especially  if  she  loses  her  temper,  her 
voice  will  be  raised  higher  and  higher 
until  it  reaches  almost  a  shriek.  And 
to  hear  two  women  "argue"  sometimes 
it  may  be  truly  said  that  we  are  listening 
to  a  ''caterwauling."  That  is  the  only 
word  that  will  describe  it. 

But  if  one  of  these  women  is  sensitive 
enough  to  know  she  is  beginning  to  strain 
in  her  argument  and  will  lower  her  voice 
and  persist  in  keeping  it  lowered  the  effect 
upon  herself  and  the  other  woman  will 
put  the  ''caterwauling"  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

"Caterwauling"  is  an  ugly  word.  It 
describes  an  ugly  sound.  If  you  have 
ever  found  yourself  in  the  past  aiding 
and  abetting  such  an  ugly  sound  in 
argument   with    another  —  say   to   your- 

231 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

self  "caterwauling,"  "caterwauling,"  "I 
have  been  'caterwauling'  with  Jane 
Smith,  or  Maria  Jones,"  or  whoever  it 
may  be,  and  that  will  bring  out  in  such 
clear  relief  the  ugliness  of  the  word  and 
the  sound  that  you  will  turn  earnestly 
toward  a  more  quiet  way  of  speaking. 

The  next  time  you  start  on  the  strain 
of  an  argument  and  your  voice  begins 
to  go  up,  up,  up  —  something  will  whisper 
in  your  ear  "caterwauling"  and  you  will 
at  once,  in  self-defense,  lower  your  voice 
or  stop  speaking  altogether. 

It  is  good  to  call  ugly  things  by  their 
ugliest  names.  It  helps  us  to  see  them 
in  their  true  light  and  makes  us  more 
earnest  in  our  efforts  to  get  away  from 
them  altogether. 

I  was  once  a  guest  at  a  large  recep- 
tion and  the  noise  of  talking  seemed  to 
be  a  roar,  when  suddenly  an  elderly  man 
got  up  on  a  chair  and  called  "silence," 

232 


ABOUT  VOICES 


and  having  obtained  silence  he  said,  *'it 
has  been  suggested  that  every  one  in  this 
room  should  speak  in  a  lower  tone  of 


voice." 


The  response  was  immediate.  Every- 
one went  on  talking  with  the  same  in- 
terest only  in  a  lower  tone  of  voice  with  a 
result  that  was  both  delightful  and  sooth- 
ing. 

I  say  every  one  —  there  were  perhaps 
half  a  dozen  whom  I  observed  who 
looked  and  I  have  no  doubt  said  *'how 
impudent."  So  it  was  ''impudent"  if 
you  chose  to  take  it  so  —  but  most  of 
the  people  did  not  choose  to  take  it  so 
and  so  brought  a  more  quiet  atmosphere 
and  a  happy  change  of  tone. 

Theophile  Gautier  said  that  the  voice 
was  nearer  the  soul  than  any  other  ex- 
pressive part  of  us.  It  is  certainly  a  very 
striking  indicator  of  the  state  of  the 
soul.    If  we  accustom  ourselves  to  listen 

233 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

to  the  voices  of  those  about  us  we  detect 
more  and  more  clearly  various  qualities  of 
the  man  or  the  woman  in  the  voice,  and 
if  we  grow  sensitive  to  the  strain  in  our 
own  voices  and  drop  it  at  once  when  it  is 
perceived,  we  feel  a  proportionate  gain. 

I  knew  of  a  blind  doctor  who  habit- 
ually told  character  by  the  tone  of  the 
voice,  and  men  and  women  often  went 
to  him  to  have  their  characters  de- 
scribed as  one  would  go  to  a  palmist. 

Once  a  woman  spoke  to  him  earnestly 
for  that  purpose  and  he  replied,  ''Madam, 
your  voice  has  been  so  much  cultivated 
that  there  is  nothing  of  you  in  it  —  I 
cannot  tell  your  real  character  at  all." 
The  only  way  to  cultivate  a  voice  is  to 
open  it  to  its  best  possibilities  —  not  to 
teach  its  owner  to  pose  or  to  imitate  a 
beautiful  tone  until  it  has  acquired  the 
beautiful  tone  habit.  Such  tones  are 
always    artificial    and    the    unreality    in 

234 


ABOUT  VOICES 

them  can  be  easily  detected  by  a  quick 
ear. 

Most  great  singers  are  arrant  hypo- 
crites. There  is  nothing  of  themselves 
in  their  tone.  The  trouble  is  to  have  a 
really  beautiful  voice  one  must  have 
a  really  beautiful  soul  behind  it. 

If  you  drop  the  tension  of  your  voice 
in  an  argument  for  the  sake  of  getting 
a  clearer  mind  and  meeting  your  oppo- 
nent without  resistance,  your  voice  helps 
your  mind  and  your  mind  helps  your 
voice. 

They  act  and  react  upon  one  another 
with  mutual  benefit.  If  you  lower  your 
voice  in  general  for  the  sake  of  being 
more  quiet,  and  so  more  agreeable  and 
useful  to  those  about  you,  then  again  the 
mental  or  moral  effort  and  the  physical 
effort  help  one  another. 

It  adds  greatly  to  a  woman's  attrac- 
tion and  to  her  use  to  have  a  low,  quiet 

235 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

voice  —  and  if  any  reader  is  persisting 
in  the  effort  to  get  five  minutes  absolute 
quiet  in  every  day  let  her  finish  the  exer- 
cise by  saying  something  in  a  quiet,  rest- 
ful tone  of  voice. 

It  will  make  her  more  sensitive  to  her 
unrestful  tones  outside,  and  so  help  her 
to  improve  them. 


236 


Chapter  XX 
About  Frights 

HERE  are  two  true  stories  and  a 
remarkable  contrast.  A  nerve 
specialist  was  called  to  see  a 
young  girl  who  had  had  nervous  prostra- 
tion for  two  years.  The  physician  was 
told  before  seeing  the  patient  that  the 
illness  had  started  through  fright  occa- 
sioned by  the  patient's  waking  and  dis- 
covering a  burglar  in  her  room. 

Almost  the  moment  the  doctor  en- 
tered the  sick  room,  he  was  accosted 
with:  "Doctor,  do  you  know  what  made 
me  ill.?  It  was  frightful."  Then  fol- 
lowed a  minute  description  of  her  sud- 
den awakening  and  seeing  the  man  at 
her  bureau  drawers. 

237 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

This  story  had  been  lived  over  and 
over  by  the  young  girl  and  her  friends 
for  two  years,  until  the  strain  in  her 
brain  caused  by  the  repetition  of  the 
impression  of  fright  was  so  intense  that 
no  skill  nor  tact  seemed  able  to  remove 
it.  She  simply  would  not  let  it  go,  and 
she  never  got  really  well. 

Now,  see  the  contrast.  Another  young 
woman  had  a  similar  burglar  experience, 
and  for  several  nights  after  she  woke  with 
a  start  at  the  same  hour.  For  the  first 
two  or  three  nights  she  lay  and  shivered 
until  she  shivered  herself  to  sleep. 

Then  she  noticed  how  tightened  up 
she  was  in  every  muscle  when  she  woke, 
and  she  bethought  herself  that  she  would 
put  her  mind  on  relaxing  her  muscles 
and  getting  rid  of  the  tension  in  her 
nerves.  She  did  this  persistently,  so  that 
when  she  woke  with  the  burglar  fright  it 
was  at  once  a  reminder  to  relax. 

238 


ABOUT   FRIGHTS 

After  a  little  she  got  the  impression 
that  she  woke  in  order  to  relax  and  it 
was  only  a  very  little  while  before  she 
succeeded  so  well  that  she  did  not  wake 
until  it  was  time  to  get  up  in  the  morning. 

The  burglar  impression  not  only  left 
her  entirely,  but  left  her  with  the  habit 
of  dropping  all  contractions  before  she 
went  to  sleep,  and  her  nerves  are  stronger 
and  more  normal  in  consequence. 

The  two  girls  had  each  a  very  sensi- 
tive, nervous  temperament,  and  the  con- 
trast in  their  behavior  was  simply  a 
matter  of  intelligence. 

This  same  nerve  specialist  received 
a  patient  once  who  was  positively  bla- 
tant in  her  complaint  of  a  nervous  shock. 
"Doctor,  I  have  had  a  horrible  nervous 
shock.  It  was  horrible.  I  do  not  see  how 
I  can  ever  get  over  it." 

Then  she  told  it  and  brought  the 
horrors   out   in  weird,   over-vivid  colors. 

239 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

It  was  horrible,  but  she  was  increasing 
the  horrors  by  the  way  in  which  she 
dwelt  on  it. 

Finally,  when  she  paused  long  enough 
to  give  the  doctor  an  opportunity  to 
speak,  he  said,  very  quietly:  "Madam, 
will  you  kindly  say  to  me,  as  gently  as 
you  can,  'I  have  had  a  severe  nervous 
shock.'"  She  looked  at  him  without  a 
gleam  of  understanding  and  repeated  the 
words  quietly:  ''I  have  had  a  severe 
nervous  shock." 

In  spite  of  herself  she  felt  the  con- 
trast in  her  own  brain.  The  habitual 
blatancy  was  slightly  checked.  The  doc- 
tor then  tried  to  impress  upon  her  the 
fact  that  she  was  constantly  increasing 
the  strain  of  the  shock  by  the  way  she 
spoke  of  it  and  the  way  she  thought  of  it, 
and  that  she  was  really  keeping  herself  ill. 

Gradually,  as  she  learned  to  relax  the 
nervous  tension  caused  by  the  shock,  a 

240 


ABOUT   FRIGHTS 

true  intelligence  about  it  all  dawned  upon 
her;  the  over- vivid  colors  faded,  and  she 
got  well.  She  was  surprised  herself  at 
the  rapidity  with  which  she  got  well, 
but  she  seemed  to  understand  the  pro- 
cess and  to  be  moderately  grateful  for  it. 
If  she  had  had  a  more  sensitive  tem- 
perament she  would  have  appreciated  it 
all  the  more  keenly ;  but  if  she  had  had 
a  more  sensitive  temperament  she  would 
not  have  been  blatant  about  her  shock. 


16  241 


Chapter  XXI 
Contrariness 

I  KNOW  a  woman  who  says  that  if 
she  wants  to  get  her  father's  consent 
to  anything,  she  not  only  appears  not 
to  care  whether  he  consents  or  not,  but 
pretends  that  her  wishes  are  exactly 
opposite  to  what  they  really  are.  She 
says  it  never  fails;  the  decision  has 
always  been  made  in  opposition  to  her 
expressed  desires,  and  according  to  her 
real  wishes.  In  other  words,  she  has 
learned  how  to  manage  her  father. 

This  example  is  not  unique.  Many 
of  us  see  friends  managing  other  friends 
in  that  same  way.  The  only  thing  which 
can  interfere  with  such  astute  manage- 
ment is  the  difficulty  that  a  man  may 
have  in  concealing  his  own  will  in  order 

242 


CONTRARINESS 

to  accomplish  what  he  desires.     Wilful- 
ness is  such  an  impulsive  quantity  that 
it  will  rush  ahead  in  spite  of  us  and  spoil 
everything    when   we   feel    that   there   is 
danger  of  our  not  getting  our  own  way. 
Or,  if  we  have  succeeded  in  getting  our 
own  way  by  what  might  be  called  the 
''contrary  method,"  we  may  be  led  into 
an  expression  of  satisfaction  which  will 
throw  light  on  the  falseness  of  our  pre- 
vious attitude  and  destroy  the  confidence 
of   the   friend   whom   we   were   tactfully 
influencing. 

To  work  the  ''contrary  method"  to 
perfection  requires  a  careful  control  up 
to  the  finish  and  beyond  it.  In  order 
never  to  be  found  out,  we  have  to  be  so 
consistent  in  our  behavior  that  we 
gradually  get  trained  into  nothing  but  a 
common  every-day  hypocrite,  and  the 
process  which  goes  on  behind  hypocrisy 
must  necessarily  be  a  process  of  decay. 

243 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

Beside  that,  the  keenest  hypocrite  that 
ever  Kved  can  only  deceive  others  up  to 
a  certain  limit. 

But  what  is  one  to  do  when  a  friend 
can  only  be  reached  by  the  "contrary 
method"?  What  is  one  to  do  when  if, 
for  instance,  you  want  a  friend  to  read  a 
book,  you  know  that  the  way  to  prevent 
his  reading  it  is  to  mention  your  desire  ? 
If  you  want  a  friend  to  see  a  play  and  in 
a  forgetful  mood  mention  the  fact  that 
you  feel  sure  the  play  would  delight  him, 
you  know  as  soon  as  the  words  are  out 
of  your  mouth  you  have  put  the  chance 
of  his  seeing  the  play  entirely  out  of  the 
question  ?  What  is  one  to  do  when 
something  needs  mending  in  the  house, 
and  you  know  that  to  mention  the  need 
to  the  man  of  the  house  would  be  to 
delay  the  repair  just  so  much  longer? 
How  are  our  contrary-minded  friends 
to  be  met  if   we  cannot  pretend  we  do 

244 


CONTRARINESS 

not  want  what  we  do  want  in  order  to 
get  their  cooperation  and  consent  ? 

No  one  could  deliberately  plan  to  be 
a  hypocrite  understanding  w^hat  a  hypo- 
crite really  is.  A  hypocrite  is  a  sham  —  a 
sham  has  nothing  solid  to  stand  on.  No 
one  really  respects  a  sham,  and  the  most 
intelligent,  the  most  tactful  hypocrite 
that  ever  lived  is  nothing  but  a  sham,  — 
false  and  a  sham ! 

Beside,  no  one  can  manage  another 
by  the  process  of  sham  and  hypocrisy 
without  sooner  or  later  being  found  out, 
and  when  he  is  found  out,  all  his  power 
is  gone. 

The  trouble  with  the  contrary-minded 
is  they  have  an  established  habit  of 
resistance.  Sometimes  the  habit  is  en- 
tirely inherited,  and  has  never  been  seen 
or  acknowledged.  Sometimes  it  has  an 
inherited  foundation,  with  a  cultivated 
superstructure. 

245 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

Either  way  it  is  a  problem  for  those 
who  have  to  deal  with  it,  —  until  they 
understand.  The  "contrary  method" 
does  not  solve  the  problem;  it  is  only  a 
makeshift;  it  never  does  any  real  work, 
or  accomplishes  any  real  end.  It  is 
not  even  lastingly  intelligent. 

The  first  necessity  in  dealing  truly 
with  these  people  is  not  to  be  afraid  of 
their  resistances.  The  second  necessity, 
which  is  so  near  the  first  that  the  two 
really  belong  side  by  side,  is  never  to  meet 
their  resistances  with  resistances  of  our 
own. 

If  we  combat  another  man's  resistance, 
it  only  increases  his  tension.  No  matter 
how  wrong  he  may  be,  and  how  right  we 
are,  meeting  resistance  with  resistance 
only  breeds  trouble.  Two  minds  can 
act  and  react  upon  one  another  in  that 
way  until  they  come  to  a  lock  which  not 
only  makes  lasting  enemies  of  those  who 

246 


CONTRARINESS 

should  have  been  and  could  be  always 
friends,  but  the  contention  locks  up 
strain  in  each  man's  brain  which  can 
never  be  removed  without  pain,  and  a 
new  awakening  to  the  common  sense  of 
human  intercourse. 

If  we  want  a  friend  to  read  a  book,  to 
go  a  journey,  or  to  do  something  which  is 
more  important  for  his  own  good  than 
either,  and  we  know  that  to  suggest  our 
desire  would  be  to  rouse  his  resistance, 
the  only  way  is  to  catch  him  in  the  best 
mood  we  can,  say  what  we  have  to  say, 
give  our  own  preference,  and  at  the  same 
time  feel  and  express  a  willingness  to  be 
refused.  Every  man  is  a  free  agent,  and 
we  have  no  right  not  to  respect  his 
freedom,  even  if  he  uses  that  freedom  to 
stand  in  his  own  Ught  or  in  ours.  If  he 
is  standing  in  our  light  and  refuses  to 
move,  we  can  move  out  of  his  shadow, 
even  though  we  may  have  to  give  up  our 

247 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

most  cherished  desire  in  order  to  do 
so. 

If  he  is  standing  in  his  own  light,  and 
refuses  to  move,  we  can  suggest  or  advise 
and  do  whatever  in  us  hes  to  make  the 
common  sense  of  our  opinion  clear;  but 
if  he  still  persists  in  standing  in  his  own 
light,  it  is  his  business,  not  ours. 

It  requires  the  cultivation  of  a  strong 
will  to  put  a  request  before  a  friend  which 
we  know  will  be  resisted,  and  to  yield  to 
that  resistance  so  that  it  meets  no  antag- 
onism in  us.  But  when  it  is  done,  and 
done  thoroughly,  consistently,  and  in- 
telligently, the  other  man's  resistance 
reacts  back  upon  himself,  and  he  finds 
himself  out  as  he  never  could  in  any 
other  way.  Having  found  himself  out, 
unless  his  mulishness  is  almost  past 
sanity,  he  begins  to  reject  his  habit  of 
resistance  of  his  own  accord. 

In  dealing  with  the  contrary  minded, 

248 


CONTRARINESS 

the  *' contrary  method"  works  so  long  as 
it  is  not  discovered;  and  the  danger  of 
its  being  discovered  is  always  imminent. 
The  upright,  direct  method  is  according 
to  the  honorable  laws  of  human  inter- 
course, and  brings  always  better  results 
in  the  end,  even  though  there  may  be 
some  immediate  failures  in  the  process. 

To  adjust  ourselves  rightly  to  another 
nature  and  go  with  it  to  a  good  end,  along 
the  lines  of  least  resistance,  is  of  course 
the  best  means  of  a  real  acquaintance, 
but  to  allow  ourselves  to  manage  a 
fellow-being  is  an  indignity  to  the  man 
and  worse  than  an  indignity  to  the  mind 
who  is  willing  to  do  the  managing. 

Our  humanity  is  in  our  freedom.  Our 
freedom  is  in  our  humanity.  When  one 
man  tries  to  manage  another,  he  is  putting 
that  other  in  the  attitude  of  a  beast.  The 
man  who  is  allowing  himself  to  be  man- 
aged is  classing  himself  with  the  beasts. 

249 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Although  this  is  a  fact  so  evident  on  the 
base  of  it  that  it  needs  neither  explana- 
tion nor  enlargement,  there  is  hardly  a 
day  passes  that  some  one  does  not  say  to 
some  one,  ''You  cannot  manage  me  in 
that  way,"  and  the  answer  should  be, 
''Why  should  you  want  to  be  managed  in 
any  way ;  and  why  should  I  want  to  insult 
you  by  trying  to  manage  you  at  all  ?" 

The  girl  and  her  father  might  have 
been  intelligent  friends  by  this  time,  if 
the  practice  of  the  "contrary  method" 
had  not  tainted  the  girl  with  habitual 
hypocrisy,  and  cultivated  in  the  father 
the  warped  mind  which  results  from  the 
habit  of  resistance,  and  blind  weakness 
which  comes  from  the  false  idea  that  he 
is  always  having  his  own  way. 

If  we  want  an  open  brain  and  a  good, 
freely  working  nervous  system,  we  must 
respect  our  own  freedom  and  the  freedom 
of  other  people,  —  for  only  as  individuals 

250 


CONTRARINESS 

stand  alone  can  they  really  influence  one 
another  to  any  good  end. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  the  men  of 
habitual  resistance  pride  themselves  on 
being  in  bondage  to  no  one,  not  knowing 
that  the  fear  of  such  bondage  is  what 
makes  them  resist,  and  the  fear  of  being 
influenced  by  another  is  one  of  the  most 
painful  forms  of  bondage  in  which  a  man 
can  be. 

The  men  who  are  slaves  to  this  fear 
do  not  stop  even  to  consider  the  question. 
They  resist  and  refuse  a  request  at  once, 
for  fear  that  pausing  for  consideration 
would  open  them  to  the  danger  of  appear- 
ing to  yield  to  the  will  of  another. 

When  we  are  quite  as  willing  to  yield 
to  another  as  to  refuse  him,  then  we  are 
free,  and  can  give  any  question  that  is 
placed  before  us  intelligent  consideration, 
and  decide  according  to  our  best  judg- 
ment.     No    amount  of    willfulness    can 

251 


ner\t:s  and  common  sense 

force  a  man  to  any  action  or  attitude  of 
mind  if  he  is  willino;  to  ^ield  to  the  T\dllful 
pressure  if  it  seems  to  him  best. 

The   worse   bondas^e   of   man   to   man 
is  the  bonda2:e  of  fear. 


252 


Chapter  XXII 

How  to  Sew  Easily 

IT  is  a  common  sapng  that  we  should 
let    our    heads    save    our    heels,  but 
few  of  us  know  the  depth  of  it  or  the 
freedom  and  health  that  can  come  from 
obedience  to  it. 

For  one  thing  we  get  into  ruts.  If  a 
woman  grows  tired  sewing  she  takes 
it  for  granted  that  she  must  always  be 
tired.  Sometimes  she  frets  and  com- 
plains, which  only  adds  to  her  fatigue. 
Sometimes  she  goes  on  living  in  a 
dogged  state  of  overtiredness  until  there 
comes  a  '*last  straw"  which  brings  on 
some  organic  disease,  and  still  another 
"straw"  which  kills  her  altogether. 

We,  none  of  us,   seem  to  realize  that 
our  heads  can  save  not  only  our  heels, 

253 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

but  our  hearts,  and  our  lungs,  our 
spines  and  our  brains  —  indeed  our  whole 
nervous  systems. 

Men  and  women  sometimes  seem  to 
prefer  to  go  on  working  —  chronically 
tired  —  getting  no  joy  from  life  what- 
ever, rather  than  to  take  the  trouble 
to  think  enough  to  gain  the  habit  of 
working  restfully. 

Sometimes,  to  be  sure,  they  are  so 
tired  that  the  little  extra  exertion  of 
the  brain  required  to  learn  to  get  rid 
of  the  fatigue  seems  too  much  for  them. 

It  seems  easier  to  work  in  a  rut  of 
strain  and  discomfort  than  to  make 
the  effort  to  get  out  of  the  rut  —  even 
though  they  know  that  by  doing  so 
they  will  not  only  be  better  themselves, 
but  will  do  their  work  better. 

Now  really  the  action  of  the  brain 
which  is  needed  to  help  one  to  work 
restfully  is  quite  distinct  from  the  action 

254 


HOW  TO   SEW  EASILY 

which  does  the  work,  and  a  httle  effort 
of  the  brain  in  a  new  direction  rests  and 
refreshes  the  part  of  the  brain  which  is 
drudging  along  day  after  day,  and  not 
only  that,  but  when  one  has  gained  the 
habit  of  working  more  easily  life  is  happier 
and  more  worth  while.  If  once  we  could 
become  convinced  of  that  fact  it  would 
be  a  simple  matter  for  the  head  to  learn 
to  save  the  heels  and  for  the  whole  body 
to  be  more  vigorous  in  consequence. 

Take  sewing,  for  instance :  If  a  woman 
must  sew  all  day  long  without  cessation 
and  she  can  appreciate  that  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  taken  out  of  the  day  once  in  the 
morning  and  once  in  the  afternoon  is 
going  to  save  fatigue  and  help  her  to  do 
her  sewing  better,  does  n't  it  seem  simply 
a  lack  of  common  sense  if  she  is  not  will- 
ing to  take  that  half  hour  and  use  it  for 
its  right  purpose  ?  Or,  if  she  is  employed 
with  others,  is  it  not  a  lack  of  common 

255 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

sense  combined  with  cruelty  in  her  em- 
ployer if  he  will  not  permit  the  use  of 
fifteen  minutes  twice  a  day  to  help  his 
employees  to  do  their  work  better  and  to 
keep  more  healthy  in  the  process  of 
working  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  all  most  of  us 
need  is  to  have  our  attention  drawn  to 
the  facts  in  such  cases  as  this  and  then 
we  shall  be  willing  and  anxious  to  correct 
the  mistakes. 

First,  we  do  not  know,  and,  secondly, 
we  do  not  think,  intelligently.  It  is  within 
our  reach  to  do  both. 

Let  me  put  the  facts  about  healthy 
sewing  in  numerical  order :  — 

First  —  A  woman  should  never  sew 
nor  be  allowed  to  sew  in  bad  air.  The 
more  or  less  cramped  attitude  of  the 
chest  in  sewing  makes  it  especially  neces- 
sary that  the  lungs  should  be  well  sup- 
plied  with   oxygen,   else  the   blood   will 

^56 


HOW  TO   SEW  EASILY 

lose  vitality,  the  appetite  will  go  and 
the  nerves  will  be  straining  to  bring 
the  muscles  up  to  work  which  they  could 
do  quite  easily  if  they  were  receiving  the 
right  amount  of  nourishment  from  air 
and  food. 

Second  —  When  our  work  gives  our 
muscles  a  tendency  steadily  in  one  direc- 
tion we  must  aim  to  counteract  that 
tendency  by  using  exercises  with  a  will 
to  pull  them  in  the  opposite  way. 

If  a  man  writes  constantly,  to  stop 
writing  half  a  dozen  times  a  day  and 
stretch  the  fingers  of  his  hand  wide 
apart  and  let  them  relax  back  slowly 
will  help  him  so  that  he  need  not  be 
afraid  of  writer's  paralysis. 

Now  a  woman's  tendency  in  sewing  is 
to  have  her  chest  contracted  and  settled 
down  on  her  stomach,  and  her  head 
bent  forward.  Let  her  stop  even  twice 
a  day,  lift  her  chest  off  her  stomach, 
17  mi 


NER^^:s  and  common  sense 

see  that  the  lifting  of  her  chest  takes 
her  shoulders  back,  let  her  head  gently 
fall  back,  take  a  long  quiet  breath  in 
that  attitude,  then  bring  the  head  up 
slowly,  take  some  long  quiet  breaths  like 
gentle  sighs,  gradually  let  the  lungs 
settle  back  into  their  habitual  state  of 
breathing,  and  then  try  the  exercise 
again. 

If  this  exercise  is  repeated  three  times 
in  succession  with  quiet  care,  its  effect 
^ill  be  very  e\ddent  in  the  refreshment 
felt  when  a  woman  begins  semng  again. 

At  the  very  most  it  can  only  take 
two  minutes  to  go  through  the  whole 
exercise  and  be  ready  to  repeat  it. 

That  \\ill  mean  six  minutes  for  the 
three  successive  times. 

Six  minutes  can  easily  be  made  up 
by  the  renewed  yigor  that  comes  from 
the  long  breath  and  change  of  attitude. 

Stopping  for  the  exercise  three  times 

258 


HOW  TO   SEW  EASILY 

a  day  will  onlj  take  eighteen  —  or  at 
the  most  twenty  —  minutes  out  of  the 
day's  work  and  it  will  put  much  more 
than  that  into  the  work  in  new  power. 

Third  —  We  must  remember  that  we 
need  not  sew  in  a  badly  cramped  posi- 
tion. Of  course  the  exercises  will  help 
us  out  of  the  habitually  cramped  attitude, 
but  we  cannot  expect  them  to  help  us 
so  much  unless  we  make  an  effort  while 
sewing  to  be  as  Httle  cramped  as  possible. 

The  exercises  giye  us  a  new  standard 
of  erectness,  and  that  new  standard  will 
make  us  sensitiye  to  the  wrong;  attitude. 

We  will  constantly  notice  when  our 
chests  get  cramped  and  settled  down 
on  our  stomachs  and  by  expanding  them 
and  lifting  them,  eyen  as  we  sew,  the 
healthy  attitude  will  get  to  be  second 
nature. 

Fourth  —  We  must  sew  with  our  hands 
and  our  arms,  not  with  our  spines,  the 

259 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

backs  of  our  necks,  or  our  legs.  The  un- 
necessary strain  she  puts  into  her  sew- 
ing makes  a  woman  more  tired  than 
anything  else.  To  avoid  this  she  must 
get  sensitive  to  the  strain,  and  every 
time  she  perceives  it  drop  it ;  con- 
sciously, with  a  decided  use  of  her  will, 
until  she  has  established  the  habit  of 
working  without  strain.  The  gentle 
raising  of  the  head  to  the  erect  position 
after  the  breathing  exercise  will  let  out 
a  great  deal  of  strain,  and  so  make  us 
more  sensitive  to  its  return  when  we  be- 
gin to  sew,  and  the  more  sensitive  we 
get  to  it  the  sooner  we  can  drop  it. 

**I  think  I  hear  a  woman  say  I  have 
neither  the  time  nor  the  strength  to 
attend  to  all  this."  My  answer  is,  such 
exercise  will  save  time  and  strength  in 
the  end. 


360 


Chapter  XXIII 
Do  not  Hurry 

HOW  can  any  one  do  anything 
well  while  in  a  constant  state 
of  rush  ?  How  can  any  one  see 
anything  clearly  while  in  a  constant 
state  of  rush  ?  How  can  any  one  expect 
to  keep  healthy  and  strong  while  in  a 
constant  state  of  rush  ? 

But  most  of  my  readers  may  say,  *'I 
am  not  in  a  constant  state  of  rush  —  I 
only  hurry  now  and  then  when  I  need  to 
hurry." 

The  answ^er  to  that  is  ''Prove  it,  prove 
it."  Study  yourself  a  little,  and  see 
whether  you  find  yourself  chronically  in 
a  hurry  or  not. 

If  you  will  observe  yourself  carefully 
with  a  desire  to  find  the  hurry  tendency, 

261 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

and  to  find  it  thoroughly,  in  order  to  elim- 
inate it,  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how 
much  of  it  there  is  in  you. 

The  trouble  is  that  all  our  standards 
are  low,  and  to  raise  our  standards  we 
must  drop  that  which  interferes  with 
the  most  wholesome  way  of  living. 

As  we  get  rid  of  all  the  grosser  forms 
of  hurry  we  find  in  ourselves  other  hurry 
habits  that  are  finer  and  more  subtle, 
and  gradually  our  standards  of  quiet, 
deliberate  ways  get  higher;  we  become 
more  sensitive  to  hurry,  and  a  hurried 
way  of  doing  things  grows  more  and 
more  disagreeable  to  us. 

Watch  the  women  coming  out  of  a 
factory  in  the  dinner  hour  or  at  six  o'clock. 
They  are  almost  tumbling  over  each 
other  in  their  hurry  to  get  away.  They 
are  putting  on  their  jackets,  pushing  in 
their  hatpins,  and  running  along  as  if 
their  dinner  were  running  away  from  them, 

262 


DO  NOT  HURRY 

Something  akin  to  that  same  attitude 
of  rush  we  can  see  in  any  large  city  when 
the  clerks  come  out  of  the  shops,  for 
their  luncheon  hour,  or  when  the  work 
of  the  day  is  over. 

If  we  were  to  calculate  in  round 
numbers  the  amount  of  time  saved  by 
this  rush  to  get  away  from  the  shop,  we 
should  find  three  minutes,  probably  the 
maximum  —  and  if  we  balance  that 
against  the  loss  to  body  and  mind  which 
is  incurred,  we  should  find  the  three 
minutes'  gain  quite  overweighted  by  the 
loss  of  many  hours,  perhaps  days,  be- 
cause of  the  illness  which  must  be  the 
result  of  such  habitual  contraction. 

It  is  safe  to  predict  when  we  see  a 
woman  rushing  away  from  factory  or 
shop  that  she  is  not  going  to  "let  up"  on 
that  rate  of  speed  until  she  is  back  again 
at  work.  Indeed,  having  once  started 
brain  and  body  with  such  an  exaggerated 

263 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

impetus,  it  is  not  possible  to  quiet  down 
without  a  direct  and  decided  use  of  the 
will,  and  how  is  that  decided  action  to 
be  taken  if  the  brain  is  so  befogged  with 
the  habit  of  hurry  that  it  knows  no  better 
'  standard  ?  / 

One  of  the  girls  from  a  large  factory 
came  rushing  up  to  the  kind,  motherly 
head  of  the  boarding  house  the  other 
day  saying :  — 

"It   is   abominable   that   I   should   be 
kept  waiting  so  long  for  my  dinner, 
have  had  my  first  course  and  here  I  have 
been    waiting    twenty    minutes    for    my 
dessert." 

The  woman  addressed  looked  up 
quietly  to  the  clock  and  saw  that  it  was 
ten  minutes  past  twelve. 

"What  time  did  you  come  in .?  "  she  said. 

"At  twelve  o'clock." 

"And  you  have  had  your  first 
course?" 

264 


DO  NOT  HURRY 

'^Yes." 

"And  waited  twenty  minutes  for  your 
dessert?" 

Yes  ! ' '  (snappishly) . 

"How  can  that  be  when  you  came  in 
at  twelve  o'clock,  and  it  is  now  only  ten 
minutes  past?" 

Of  course  there  was  nothing  to  say  in 
answer,  but  whether  the  girl  took  it  to 
heart  and  so  raised  her  standard  of  quiet 
one  little  bit,  I  do  not  know. 

One  can  deposit  a  fearful  amount  of 
strain  in  the  brain  with  only  a  few  mo- 
ments' impatience. 

I  use  the  word  "fearful"  advisedly, 
for  when  the  strain  is  once  deposited  it 
is  not  easily  removed,  especially  when 
every  day  and  every  moment  of  every 
day  is  adding  to  the  strain. 

The  strain  of  hurry  makes  contrac- 
tions in  brain  and  body  with  which  it  is 
impossible  to  work  freely  and  easily  or 

M5 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

to  accomplish  as  much  as  might  be  done 
without  such  contractions. 

The  strain  of  hurry  befogs  the  brain  so 
that  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  expand  to 
an  unprejudiced  point  of  view. 

The  strain  of  hurry  so  contracts  the 
whole  nervous  and  muscular  systems 
that  the  body  can  take  neither  the  nour- 
ishment of  food  nor  of  fresh  air  as  it 
should. 

There  are  many  women  who  work  for 
a  living,  and  women  who  do  not  work 
for  a  living,  who  feel  hurried  from  morn- 
ing until  they  go  to  bed  at  night,  and 
they  must,  perforce,  hurry  to  sleep  and 
hurry  awake. 

Often  the  day  seems  so  full,  and  one 
is  so  pressed  for  time  that  it  is  impossible 
to  get  in  all  there  is  to  do,  and  yet  a  little 
quiet  thinking  will  show  that  the  im- 
portant things  can  be  easily  put  into 
two  thirds  of  the  day,  and  the  remain- 

2Q0 


DO   NOT  HURRY 

ing  third  is  free  for  rest,  or  play,  or 
both. 

Then  again,  there  is  real  dehght  in 
quietly  fitting  one  thing  in  after  another 
when  the  day  must  be  full,  and  the  re- 
sult at  the  end  of  the  day  is  only  healthy 
fatigue  from  which  a  good  night's  rest 
will  refresh  us  entirely. 

There  is  one  thing  that  is  very  evident 
—  a  feeling  of  hurry  retards  our  work, 
it  does  not  hasten  it,  and  the  more  quietly 
we  can  do  what  is  before  us,  the  more 
quickly  and  vigorously  we  do  it. 

The  first  necessity  is  to  find  ourselves 
out  —  to  find  out  for  a  fact  when  we  do 
hurry,  and  how  we  hurry,  and  how  we 
have  the  sense  of  hurry  with  us  all  the 
time.  Having  willingly,  and  gladly,  found 
ourselves  out,  the  remedy  is  straight 
before  us. 

Nature  is  on  the  side  of  leisure  and 
will  come  to  our  aid  with  higher  stand- 

267 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

ards  of  quiet,  the  possibilities  of  which 
are  always  in  every  one's  brain,  if  we 
only  look  to  find  them. 

To  sit  five  minutes  quietly  taking  long 
breaths  to  get  a  sense  of  leisure  every 
day  will  be  of  very  great  help  —  and  then 
when  we  find  ourselves  hurrying,  let  us 
stop  and  recall  the  best  quiet  we  know  — 
that  need  only  take  a  few  seconds,  and 
the  gain  is  sure  to  follow. 

Festina  lente  (hasten  slowly)  should  be 
in  the  back  of  our  brains  all  day  and 
every  day. 

"  'T  is  haste  makes  waste,  the  sage  avers, 
And  instances  are  far  too  plenty; 
Whene'er  the  hasty  impulse  stirs. 
Put  on  the  brake,  Festina  Lente." 


268 


Chapter  XXIV 
The  Care  of  an  Invalid 

TO  take  really  good  care  of   one 
who    is    ill    requires    not     only 
knowledge    but    intelligent    pa- 
tience and  immeasurable  tact. 

A  little  knowledge  will  go  a  great  way, 
and  we  do  not  need  to  be  trained  nurses 
in  order  to  help  our  friends  to  bear  their 
illnesses  patiently  and  quietly  and  to 
adjust  things  about  them  so  that  they 
are  enabled  to  get  well  faster  because  of 
the  care  we  give  them. 

Sometimes  if  we  have  only  fifteen 
minutes  in  the  morning  and  fifteen 
minutes  at  night  to  be  with  a  sick  friend, 
we  can  so  arrange  things  for  the  day 
and  for  the  night  that  we  will  have  left 
behind   us   a   directly   curative  influence 

269 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

because  our  invalid  feels  cared  for  in 
the  best  way,  and  has  confidence  enough 
to  follow  the  suggestions  we  have 
given. 

More  depends  upon  the  spirit  with 
which  we  approach  an  invalid  than  any- 
thing else. 

A  trained  nurse  who  has  graduated 
at  the  head  of  her  class  and  has  execu- 
tive ability,  who  knows  exactly  what  to 
do  and  when  to  do  it,  may  yet  bring  such 
a  spirit  of  self-importance  and  bustle 
that  everything  she  does  for  the  invalid's 
ease,  comfort,  and  recuperation  is  coun- 
teracted by  the  unrestful  "professional" 
spirit  with  which  the  work  is  done. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  woman  who  has 
only  a  slight  knowledge  of  nursing  can 
bring  so  restful  and  unobtrusive  an  at- 
mosphere with  her  that  the  invalid  gains 
from  her  very  presence. 

Overwhelming    kindness    is    not    only 

270 


THE   CARE   OF  AN  INVALID 

tiresome  and  often  annoying,  but  a  serious 
drag  on  one  who  is  ill. 

People  who  are  so  busy  doing  kind- 
nesses seldom  consult  the  invalid's  pref- 
erences at  all.  They  are  too  full  of  their 
own  selfish  kindliness  and  self-importance. 

I  remember  a  woman  who  was  suffer- 
ing intensely  from  neuralgia  in  her  face. 
A  friend,  proud  of  the  idea  of  caring  for 
her  and  giving  up  her  own  pleasure  to 
stay  in  the  darkened  room  and  keep  the 
sufferer's  face  bathed  in  hot  water,  made 
such  a  rustling  back  and  forth  with  her 
skirts  in  getting  the  water  that  the  strain 
of  the  constant  noise  and  movement  not 
only  counteracted  any  relief  that  might 
have  come  from  the  heat,  but  it  increased 
the  pain  and  made  the  nervous  condi- 
tion of  the  patient  much  worse. 

So  it  is  with  a  hundred  and  one  little 
*' kindnesses"  that  people  try  to  do  for 
others  when  they  are  ill. 

271 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

They  talk  to  amuse  them  when  the 
invalids  would  give  all  in  their  power 
to  have  a  little  quiet. 

They  sit  like  lumps  and  say  nothing 
when  a  little  light,  easy  chatting  might 
divert  the  invalid's  attention  and  so  start 
up  a  gentle  circulation  which  would  tend 
directly  toward  health. 

Or,  they  talk  and  are  entertaining  for 
a  while  in  a  very  helpful  way,  but  not 
knowing  when  to  stop,  finally  make  the 
patient  so  tired  that  they  undo  all  the 
good  of  the  first  fifteen  minutes. 

They  flood  the  room  with  light,  "to 
make  it  look  pleasant,"  when  the  invalid 
longs  for  the  rest  of  a  darkened  room; 
or  they  draw  the  shades  when  the  patient 
longs  for  the  cheerfulness  of  sunlight. 

They  fuss  and  move  about  to  do  this 
or  that  and  the  other  "kindness"  when 
the  sick  person  longs  for  absolute 
quiet. 

27^ 


THE   CARE  OF  AN  INVALID 

They  shower  attentions  when  the  first 
thing  that  is  desired  is  to  be  let  alone. 

One  secret  of  the  whole  trouble  in  this 
oppressive  care  of  the  sick  is  that  this 
sort  of  caretaker  is  interested  more  to 
please  herself  and  feel  the  satisfaction  of 
her  own  benefactions  than  she  is  to  really 
please  the  friend  for  whom  she  is  caring. 

Another  trouble  is  common  ignorance. 

Some  women  would  gladly  sacrifice 
anything  to  help  a  friend  to  get  w^ell; 
they  would  give  their  time  and  their 
strength  gladly  and  count  it  as  nothing, 
but  they  do  not  know  how  to  care  for 
the  sick.  Often  such  people  are  sadly 
discouraged  because  they  see  that  they  are 
only  bringing  discomfort  where,  with  all 
their  hearts,  they  desire  to  bring  comfort. 

The   first   necessity   in   the   right   care 

for  the  sick  is  to  be  quiet  and  cheerful. 

The  next  is  to  aim,  without  disturbing 

the  invalid,   to  get  as  true  an  idea   as 

18  273 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

possible  of  the  condition  necessary  to 
help  the  patient  to  get  well.  The  third 
is  to  bring  about  those  conditions  with 
the  least  possible  amount  of  friction. 

Find  out  what  the  invalid  likes  and 
how  she  likes  it  by  observation  and  not 
by  questions. 

Sometimes,  of  course,  a  question  must 
be  asked.  If  we  receive  a  snappish 
answer,  let  us  not  resent  it,  but  blame 
the  illness  and  be  grateful  if,  along  with 
the  snappishness,  we  find  out  what  suits 
our  patient  best. 

If  we  see  her  increasing  her  pain  by 
contracting  and  giving  all  her  attention 
to  complaining,  we  cannot  help  her  by 
telling  her  that  that  sort  of  thing  is  not 
going  to  make  her  well.  But  we  can 
soothe  her  in  a  way  that  will  enable  her 
to  see  it  for  herself. 

Often  the  right  suggestion,  no  matter 
how    good    it    is,    will    only    annoy    the 

274 


THE  CARE  OF  AN  INVALID 

patient  and  send  her  farther  on  in  the 
wrong  path;  but  if  given  in  some  gen- 
tle roundabout  way,  so  that  she  feels 
that  she  has  discovered  for  herself  what 
you  have  been  trying  to  tell  her,  it  will 
work  wonders  toward  her  recovery. 

If  you  want  to  care  for  the  sick  in 
a  way  that  will  truly  help  them  toward 
recovery,  you  must  observe  and  study, 
—  study  and  observe,  and  never  resent 
their  irritability. 

See  that  they  have  the  right  amount 
of  air;  that  they  have  the  right  nourish- 
ment at  the  right  intervals.  Let  them 
have  things  their  own  way,  and  done 
in  their  own  way  so  far  as  is  possible 
without  interfering  with  what  is  necessary 
to  their  health. 

Remember  that  there  are  times  when 
it  is  better  to  risk  deferring  recovery 
a  little  rather  than  force  upon  an  in- 
valid   what    is    not    wanted,    especially 

275 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

when  it   is   evident   that   resistance   will 
be  harmful. 

Quiet,  cheerfulness,  light,  air,  nourish- 
ment, orderly  surroundings,  and  to  be 
let  judiciously  alone;  those  are  the  con- 
ditions which  the  amateur  nurse  must 
further,  according  to  her  own  judgment 
and  her  knowledge  of  the  friend  she  is 
nursing. 

For  this  purpose  she  must,  as  I  have 
said,  study  and  observe,  and  observe 
and  study. 

I  do  not  mean  necessarily  to  do  all 
this  when  she  is  *'off  duty,"  but  to  so 
concentrate  when  she  is  attending  to 
the  wants  of  her  friend  that  every  moment 
and  every  thought  will  be  used  to  the 
best  gain  of  the  patient  herself,  and  not 
toward  our  ideas  of  her  best  gain. 

A  little  careful  effort  of  this  kind  will 
open  a  new  and  interesting  vista  to  the 
nurse  as  well  as  the  patient. 

276 


Chapter  XXV 
The  Habit  of  Illness 

IT  is  surprising  how  many  invalids 
there  are  who  have  got  well  and  do 
not  know  it!  When  you  feel  ill  and 
days  drag  on  with  one  ill  feeling  following 
another,  it  is  not  a  pleasant  thing  to  be 
told  that  you  are  quite  well.  Who  could 
be  expected  to  believe  it?  I  should  like 
to  know  how  many  men  and  women 
there  are  who  will  read  this  article,  who 
are  well  and  do  not  know  it;  and  how 
many  of  such  men  and  women  will  take 
the  hint  I  want  to  give  them  and  turn 
honestly  toward  finding  themselves  out 
in  a  way  that  will  enable  them  to  dis- 
cover and  acknowledge  the  truth? 

277 


NERVES   AND    COMMON   SENSE 

Nerves  form  habits.  They  actually 
form  habits  in  themselves.  If  a  woman 
has  had  an  organic  trouble  which  has 
caused  certain  forms  of  nervous  discom- 
fort, when  the  organic  trouble  is  cured 
the  nerves  are  apt  to  go  on  for  a  time 
with  the  same  uncomfortable  feelings 
because  during  the  period  of  illness  they 
had  formed  the  habit  of  such  discom- 
fort. Then  is  the  time  when  the  will 
must  be  used  to  overcome  such  habits. 
The  trouble  is  that  when  the  doctor  tells 
these  victims  of  nervous  habit  that  they 
are  really  well  they  will  not  believe  him. 
"How  can  I  be  well,"  they  say,  "when  I 
suffer  just  as  I  did  while  I  was  ill.^"  If 
then  the  doctor  is  fortunate  enough  to 
convince  them  of  the  fact  that  it  is  only 
the  nervous  habit  formed  from  their 
illness  which  causes  them  to  suffer,  and 
that  they  can  rouse  their  wills  to  over- 
come intelligently  this  habit,  then  they 

278 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

can  be  well  in  a  few  weeks  when  they 
might  have  been  apparently  ill  for  many 
months  —  or  perhaps  even  years. 

Nerves  form  the  habit  of  being  tired. 
A  woman  can  get  very  much  overfatigued 
at  one  time  and  have  the  impression  of 
the  fatigue  so  strongly  on  her  nerves  that 
the  next  time  she  is  only  a  little  tired 
she  will  believe  she  is  very  tired,  and  so 
her  life  will  go  until  the  habit  of  being 
tired  has  been  formed  in  her  nerves 
and  she  believes  that  she  is  tired  all 
the  time  —  whereas  if  the  truth  were 
known  she  might  easily  feel  rested  all 
the  time. 

It  is  often  very  difficult  to  overcome 
the  habit  which  the  nerves  form  as  a 
result  of  an  attack  of  nervous  prostra- 
tion. It  is  equally  hard  to  convince  any 
one  getting  out  of  such  an  illness  that 
the  habit  of  his  nerves  tries  to  make  him 
believe  he  cannot  do  a  little  more  every 

279 


NERVES   AND  COMMON   SENSE 

day  —  when  he  really  can,  and  would  be 
better  for  it.  Many  eases  of  nervous 
prostration  which  last  for  years  might 
be  cured  in  as  many  months  if  the  truth 
about  nerve  habits  were  recognized  and 
acted  upon. 

Nerves  can  form  bad  habits  and  they 
can  form  good  habits,  but  of  all  the  bad 
habits  formed  by  nerves  perhaps  the  very 
worst  is  the  habit  of  being  ill.  These 
bad  habits  of  illness  engender  an  unwill- 
ingness to  let  go  of  them.  They  seem  so 
real.  "I  do  not  want  to  suffer  like  this," 
I  hear  an  invalid  say;  "if  it  were  merely 
a  habit  don't  you  think  I  would  throw  it 
off  in  a  minute  .f^" 

I  knew  a  young  physician  who  had  made 
somewhat  of  a  local  reputation  in  the 
care  of  nerves,  and  a  man  living  in  a  far- 
distant  country,  who  had  been  for  some 
time  a  chronic  invalid,  happened  by 
accident  to  hear  of  him.    My  friend  was 

280 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

surprised  to  receive  a  letter  from  this 
man,  offering  to  pay  him  the  full  amount 
of  all  fees  he  would  earn  in  one  month 
and  as  much  more  as  he  might  ask  if  he 
would  spend  that  time  in  the  house  with 
him  and  attempt  his  cure. 

Always  interested  in  new  phases  of 
nerves,  and  having  no  serious  case  on 
hand  himself  at  the  time,  he  assented  and 
went  with  great  interest  on  this  long 
journey  to,  as  he  hoped,  cure  one  man. 
When  he  arrived  he  found  his  patient 
most  charming.  He  listened  attentively 
to  the  account  of  his  years  of  illness, 
inquired  of  others  in  the  house  with  him, 
and  then  went  to  bed  and  to  sleep.  In 
the  morning  he  woke  with  a  sense  of  un- 
explained depression.  In  searching  about 
for  the  cause  he  went  over  his  interviews 
of  the  day  before  and  found  a  doubt  in 
his  mind  which  he  would  hardly  acknowl- 
edge;  but  by  the  end  of  the  next  day  he 

281 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

said  to  himself:  "What  a  fool  I  was  to 
come  so  far  without  a  more  complete 
knowledge  of  what  I  was  coming  to! 
This  man  has  been  well  for  years  and 
does  not  know  it.  It  is  the  old  habit  of 
his  illness  that  is  on  him;  the  illness  it- 
self must  have  left  him  ten  years  ago." 

The  next  day  —  the  first  thing  after 
breakfast  —  he  took  a  long  walk  in  order 
to  make  up  his  mind  what  to  do,  and 
finally  decided  that  he  had  engaged  to 
stay  one  month  and  must  keep  to  his 
promise.  It  would  not  do  to  tell  the 
invalid  the  truth  —  the  poor  man  would 
not  believe  it.  He  was  self-willed  and 
self-centered,  and  his  pains  and  discom- 
forts, which  came  simply  from  old  habits 
of  illness,  were  as  real  to  him  as  if  they 
had  been  genuine.  Several  physicians 
had  emphasized  his  belief  that  he  was 
ill.  One  doctor  —  so  my  friend  was 
told  —  who  saw  clearly  the  truth  of  the 

282 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

case,  ventured  to  hint  at  it  and  was  at 
once  discharged.  My  friend  knew  all 
these  difficulties  and,  when  he  made  up 
his  mind  that  the  only  right  thing  for 
him  to  do  was  to  stay,  he  found  himself 
intensely  interested  in  trying  to  approach 
his  patient  with  so  much  delicacy  that 
he  could  finally  convince  him  of  the  truth; 
and  I  am  happy  to  say  that  his  efforts 
were  to  a  great  degree  successful.  The 
patient  was  awakened  to  the  fact  that, 
if  he  tried,  he  could  be  a  well  man.  He 
never  got  so  far  as  to  see  that  he  really 
was  a  well  man  who  was  allowing  old 
habits  to  keep  him  ill;  but  he  got  enough 
of  a  new  and  healthy  point  of  view  to 
improve  greatly  and  to  feel  a  hearty 
sense  of  gratitude  toward  the  man  who 
had  enlightened  him.  The  long  habit 
of  illness  had  dulled  his  brain  too  much 
for  him  to  appreciate  the  whole  truth 
about  himself. 

283 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

The  only  way  that  such  an  invaHd's 
brain  can  be  enUghtened  is  by  going  to 
work  very  gently  and  leading  him  to  the 
light  —  never  by  combating.  This  young 
physician  whom  I  mention  was  success- 
ful only  through  making  friends  with  his 
patient  and  leading  him  gradually  to 
appear  to  discover  for  himself  the  fact 
which  all  the  time  the  physician  was 
really  telling  him.  The  only  way  to  help 
others  is  to  help  them  to  help  themselves, 
and  this  is  especially  the  truth  with 
nerves. 

If  you,  my  friend,  are  so  fortunate  as 
to  find  out  that  your  illness  is  more  a 
habit  of  illness  than  illness  itself,  do  not 
expect  to  break  the  habit  at  once.  Go 
about  it  slowly  and  with  common  sense. 
A  habit  can  be  broken  sooner  than  it 
can  be  formed,  but  even  then  it  cannot 
be  broken  immediately.  First  recognize 
that     your     uncomfortable     feelings  — 

284 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

whether  of  eyes,  nose,  stomach,  back  of 
neck,  top  of  head,  or  whatever  it  may  be, 
are  mere  habits,  and  then  go  about 
gradually  but  steadily  ignoring  them. 
When  once  you  find  that  your  own 
healthy  self  can  assert  itself  and  realize 
that  you  are  stronger  than  your  habits, 
these  habits  of  illness  will  weaken  and 
finally  disappear  altogether. 

The  moment  an  illness  gets  hold  of 
one,  the  illness  has  the  floor,  so  to  speak, 
and  the  temptation  is  to  consider  it  the 
master  of  the  situation  —  and  yielding 
to  this  temptation  is  the  most  effectual 
way  of  beginning  to  establish  the  habits 
which  the  illness  has  started,  and  makes 
it  more  difficult  to  know  when  one  is 
well.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  clearly 
possible  to  yield  completely  to  an  illness 
and  let  Nature  take  its  course,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  take  a  mental  attitude 
of  wholesomeness  toward  it  which  will 

285 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

deprive  the  illness  of  much  of  its  power. 
Nature  always  tends  toward  health;  so 
we  have  the  working  of  natural  law 
entirely  on  our  side.  If  the  attitude  of  a 
man's  mind  is  healthy,  when  he  gets  well 
he  is  well.  He  is  not  bothered  long  with 
the  habits  of  his  illness,  for  he  has  never 
allowed  them  to  gain  any  hold  upon  him. 
He  has  neutralized  the  eflEect  of  the  would- 
be  habits  in  the  beginning  so  that  they 
could  not  get  a  firm  hold.  We  can  coun- 
teract bad  habits  with  good  ones  any 
time  that  we  want  to  if  we  only  go  to 
work  in  the  right  way  and  are  intelligently 
persistent. 

It  would  be  funny  if  it  were  not  sad  to 
hear  a  man  say,  "Well,  you  know  I  had 
such  and  such  an  illness  years  ago  and 
I  never  really  recovered  from  the  effects 
of  it,"  and  to  know  at  the  same  time  that 
he  had  kept  himself  in  the  effects  of  it, 
or  rather  the  habits  of  his  nerves  had 
■      286 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

kept  him  there,  and  he  had  been  either 
ignorant  or  unwilHng  to  use  his  will  to 
throw  off  those  habits  and  gain  the  habits 
of  health  which  were  ready  and  waiting. 

People  who  cheerfully  turn  their  hearts 
and  minds  toward  health  have  so  much, 
so  very  much,  in  their  favor. 

Of  course,  there  are  laws  of  health  to 
be  learned  and  carefully  followed  in  the 
work  of  throwing  off  habits  of  illness. 
We  must  rest;  take  food  that  is  nourish- 
ing, exercise,  plenty  of  sleep  and  fresh 
air  —  yet  always  with  the  sense  that  the 
illness  is  only  something  to  get  rid  of, 
and  our  own  healthy  attitude  toward 
the  illness  is  of  the  greatest  importance. 

Sometimes  a  man  can  go  right  ahead 
with  his  work,  allow  an  illness  to  run  its 
course,  and  get  well  without  interrupting 
his  work  in  the  least,  because  of  his 
strong  aim  toward  health  which  keeps  his 
illness  subordinate.    But  this  is  not  often 

287 


NERVES  AND    COMMON  SENSE 

the  case.  An  illness,  even  though  it  be 
treated  as  subordinate,  must  be  respected 
more  or  less  according  to  its  nature. 
But  when  that  is  done  normally  no  bad 
habits  will  be  left  behind. 

I  know  a  young  girl  who  was  ill  with 
strained  nerves  that  showed  themselves 
in  weak  eyes  and  a  contracted  stomach. 
She  is  well  now  —  entirely  well  —  but 
whenever  she  gets  a  little  tired  the  old 
habits  of  eyes  and  stomach  assert  them- 
selves, and  she  holds  firmly  on  to  them, 
whereas  each  time  of  getting  overtired 
might  be  an  opportunity  to  break  up 
these  evil  habits  by  a  right  amount  of 
rest  and  a  healthy  amount  of  ignoring. 

This  matter  of  habit  is  a  very  painful 
thing  when  it  is  supported  by  inherited 
tendencies.  If  a  young  person  overdoes 
and  gets  pulled  down  with  fatigue  the 
fatigue  expresses  itself  in  the  weakest 
part  of  his  body.     It  may  be  in  the 

288 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

stomach  and  consequently  appear  as 
indigestion;  it  may  be  in  the  head  and 
so  bring  about  severe  headaches,  and  it 
may  be  in  both  stomach  and  head. 

If  it  is  known  that  such  tendencies  are 
inherited  the  first  thought  that  almost 
inevitably  comes  to  the  mind  is:  "My 
father  always  had  headaches  and  my 
grandfather,  too.  Of  course,  I  must 
expect  them  now  for  the  rest  of  my  life." 
That  thought  interpreted  rightly  is:  "My 
grandfather  formed  the  headache  habit, 
my  father  inherited  the  habit  and  clinched 
it  —  now,  of  course,  I  must  expect  to 
inherit  it,  and  I  will  do  my  best  to  see  if 
I  cannot  hold  on  to  the  habit  as  well  as 
they  did  —  even  better,  because  I  can 
add  my  own  hold  to  that  which  I  have 
inherited  from  both  my  ancestors." 

Now,  of  course,  a  habit  of  illness, 
whether  it  be  of  the  head,  stomach,  or  of 
both,  is  much  more  difficult  to  discard 
19  289 


NERVES  AND    COMMON  SENSE 

when  it  is  inherited  than  when  it  is  first 
acquired  in  a  personal  illness  of  our  own; 
but,  because  it  is  difficult,  it  is  none  the 
less  possible  to  discard  it,  and  when  the 
work  has  been  accomplished  the  strength 
gained  from  the  steady,  intelligent  effort 
fully  compensates  for  the  difficulty  of 
the   task. 

One  must  not  get  impatient  with  a  bad 
habit  in  one's  self;  it  has  a  certain  power 
while  it  lasts,  and  can  acquire  a  very 
strong  hold.  Little  by  little  it  must 
be  dealt  with  —  patiently  and  steadily. 
Sometimes  it  seems  almost  as  if  such 
habits  had  intelligence  —  for  the  more 
you  ignore  them  the  more  rampant  they 
become,  and  there  is  a  Rubicon  to  cross, 
in  the  process  of  ignoring  which,  when 
once  passed,  makes  the  work  of  gaining 
freedom  easier;  for  when  the  backbone 
of  the  habit  is  broken  it  weakens  and 
seems  to  fade   away   of  itself,   and  we 

290 


THE  HABIT  OF  ILLNESS 

awaken  some  fine  morning  and  it  has 
gone  —  really  gone. 

Many  persons  are  in  a  prison  of  bad 
habits  simply  because  they  do  not  know 
how  to  get  out  —  not  because  they  do 
not  want  to  get  out.  If  we  want  to  help 
a  friend  out  of  the  habit  of  illness  it  is 
most  important  first  to  be  sure  that  it 
is  a  habit,  and  then  to  remember  that  a 
suggestion  is  seldom  responded  to  unless 
it  is  given  with  generous  sympathy  and 
love.  Indeed,  when  a  suggestion  is  given 
with  lack  of  sympathy  or  with  contempt 
the  tendency  is  to  make  the  invalid  turn 
painfully  away  from  the  speaker  and  hug 
her  bad  habits  more  closely  to  herself. 
What  we  can  do,  however,  is  to  throw  out 
a  suggestion  here  and  there  which  may 
lead  such  a  one  to  discover  the  truth  for 
herself;  then,  if  she  comes  to  you  with 
sincere  interest  in  her  discovery,  don't 
say:    "Yes,  I  have  thought  so  for  some 

291 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

time."  Keep  yourself  out  of  it,  except 
in  so  far  as  you  can  give  aid  which  is 
really  wanted,  and  accepted  and  used. 

Beware  of  saying  or  doing  anything 
to  or  for  any  one  which  will  only  rouse 
resentment  and  serve  to  push  deeper 
into  the  brain  an  impression  already 
made  by  a  mistaken  conviction.  More 
than  half  of  the  functional  and  nervous 
illnesses  in  the  world  are  caused  by  bad 
habit,  either  formed  or  inherited. 

Happy  are  those  who  discover  the  fact 
for  themselves  and,  with  the  intelligence 
born  from  such  discovery,  work  with 
patient  insight  until  they  have  freed 
themselves  from  bondage.  Happy  are 
those  who  feel  willing  to  change  any 
mistaken  conviction  or  prejudice  and 
to  recognize  it  as  a  sin  against  the  truth. 


292 


Chapter  XXVI 
What  is  It  that  Makes  Me  so  Nervous? 

THE  two  main  reasons  why  women 
are  nervous  are,  first,  that  they  do 
not  take  intelHgent  care  of  their 
bodies,  and  secondly,  that  they  do  not 
govern  their  emotions. 

I  know  a  woman  who  prefers  to  make 
herself  genuinely  miserable  rather  than 
take  food  normally,  to  eat  it  normally, 
and  to  exercise  in  the  fresh  air. 

"Everybody  is  against  me,"  she  says; 
and  if  you  answer  her,  "My  dear,  you  are 
acting  against  yourself  by  keeping  your 
stomach  on  a  steady  strain  with  too  much 
unmasticated,      unhealthy,      undigested 

food,"  she  turns  a  woe-begone  face  on  you 

293 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

and  asks  how  you  can  be  "so  material." 
"Nobody  loves  me;  nobody  is  kind  to 
me.    Everybody  neglects  me,"  she  says. 

And  when  you  answer,  "How  can 
any  one  love  you  when  you  are  always 
whining  and  complaining  .^^  How  can 
any  one  be  kind  to  you  when  you  resent 
and  resist  every  friendly  attention  because 
it  does  not  suit  your  especial  taste? 
Indeed,  how  can  you  expect  anything 
from  any  one  when  you  are  giving  noth- 
ing yourself.^"  She  replies, 

"But  I  am  so  nervous.  I  suffer.  Why 
don't  they  sympathizer^" 

"My  dear  child,  would  you  sympa- 
thize with  a  woman  who  went  down 
into  the  cellar  and  cried  because  she  was 
so  cold,  when  fresh  air  and  warm  sun- 
shine were  waiting  for  her  outside.'^" 

This   very   woman  herself   is  cold  all 

the  time.     She  piles  covers  over  herself 

at  night  so  that  the  weight  alone  would 

294 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

be  enough  to  make  her  ill.  She  sleeps 
with  the  heat  turned  on  in  her  room.  She 
complains  all  day  of  cold  when  not  com- 
plaining of  other  things.  She  puts  such 
a  strain  on  her  stomach  that  it  takes  all 
of  her  vitality  to  look  after  her  food ;  there- 
fore she  has  no  vitality  left  with  which 
to  resist  the  cold.  Of  course  she  resists 
the  idea  of  a  good  brisk  walk  in  the  fresh 
air,  and  yet,  if  she  took  the  walk  and  en- 
joyed it,  it  would  start  up  her  circulation, 
give  her  blood  more  oxygen,  and  help 
her  stomach  to  go  through  all  its  useless 
labor  better. 

When  a  woman  disobeys  all  the  laws 
of  nervous  health  how  can  she  expect 
not  to  have  her  nerves  rebel.f^  Nerves 
in  themselves  are  exquisitely  sensitive 
—  with  a  direct  tendency  toward  health. 

"Don't    give    me    such    unnecessary 

work,"  the  stomach  cries.     "Don't  stuff 

me  full  of  the  wrong  things.    Don't  put  a 

295 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

bulk  of  food  into  me,  but  chew  your  food, 
so  that  I  shall  not  have  to  do  my  own 
work  and  yours,  too,  when  the  food  gets 
down  here." 

And  there  is  the  poor  stomach,  a  big 
nervous  centre  in  close  communication 
with  the  brain,  protesting  and  protesting, 
and  its  owner  interprets  all  these  pro- 
testations into:  "I  am  so  unhappy.  I 
have  to  work  so  much  harder  than  I 
ought.  Nobody  loves  me.  Oh,  why  am 
I  so  nervous  .f^" 

The  blood  also  cries  out:  "Give  me 
more  oxygen.  I  cannot  help  the  lungs  or 
the  stomach  or  the  brain  to  do  their  work 
properly  unless  you  take  exercise  in  the 
fresh  air  that  will  feed  me  truly  and  send 
me  over  the  body  with  good,  wholesome 
vigor." 

Now  there  is  another  thing  that  is  sadly 

evident   about  the  young  woman  who 

will  not  take  fresh  air,  nor  eat  the  right 

296 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

food,  nor  masticate  properly  the  food 
that  she  does  eat.  When  she  goes  out 
for  a  walk  she  seems  to  fight  the  fresh 
air;  she  walks  along  full  of  resistance  and 
contraction,  and  tightens  all  her  muscles 
so  that  she  moves  as  if  she  were  tied 
together  with  ropes.  The  expression 
of  her  face  is  one  of  miserable  strain 
and  endurance;  the  tone  of  her  voice 
is  full  of  complaint.  In  eating  either 
she  takes  her  food  with  the  appearance 
of  hungry  grabbing,  or  she  refuses  it 
with  a  fastidious  scorn.  Any  nervous 
woman  who  really  wants  to  find  herself 
out,  in  order  to  get  well  and  strong, 
and  contented  and  happy,  will  see  in 
this  description  a  reflection  of  herself, 
even  though  it  may  be  an  exaggerated 
reflection. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  tired,  hungry  baby 
fight  his  food.^  His  mother  tries  to  put 
the  bottle  to  his  mouth,  and  the  baby 

297 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

cries  and  cries,  and  turns  his  head  away, 
and  brandishes  his  Httle  arms  about,  as 
if  his  mother  were  offering  him  some- 
thing bitter.  Then,  finally,  when  his 
mother  succeeds  in  getting  him  to  open 
his  mouth  and  take  the  food  it  makes 
you  smile  all  over  to  see  the  contrast: 
he  looks  so  quiet  and  contented,  and 
you  can  see  his  whole  little  body  expand 
with  satisfaction. 

It  is  just  the  same  inherited  tendency 
in  a  nervous  woman  that  makes  her 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously  fight 
exercise  and  fresh  air,  fight  good  food 
and  eating  it  rightly,  fight  everything 
that  is  wholesome  and  strengthening 
and  quieting  to  her  nerves,  and  cling 
with  painful  tenacity  to  everything  that 
is  contracting  and  weakening,  and  pro- 
ductive of  chronic  strain. 

There  is  another  thing  that  a  woman 

fights :  she  fights  rest.    Who  has  not  seen 

298 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

a  tired  woman  work  harder  and  harder, 
when  she  was  tired,  until  she  has  worn 
herself  to  a  state  of  nervous  irritability 
and  finally  has  to  succumb  for  want  of 
strength?  Who  has  not  seen  this  same 
tired  woman,  the  moment  she  gets  back 
a  little  grain  of  strength,  use  it  up  again 
at  once  instead  of  waiting  until  she  had 
paid  back  her  principal  and  could  use 
only  the  interest  of  her  strength  while 
keeping  a  good  balance  in  reserve? 

"I  wish  my  mother  would  not  do  so 
many  unnecessary  things,"  said  an  anx- 
ious daughter. 

A  few  days  after  this  the  mother  came 

in  tired,  and,  with  a  fagged  look  on  her 

face  and  a  fagged  tone  in  her  voice,  said: 

"Before  I  sit  down  I  must  go  and  see 

poor  Mrs.  Robinson.     I  have  just  heard 

that  she  has  been  taken  ill  with  nervous 

prostration.    Poor  thing!    Why  could  n't 

she  have  taken  care  of  herself?" 

299 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

"But,  mother,"  her  daughter  an- 
swered, ''I  have  been  to  see  Mrs.  Robin- 
son, and  taken  her  some  flowers,  and 
told  her  how  sorry  you  would  be  to  hear 
that  she  was  ill." 

"My  dear,"  said  the  fagged  mother 
with  a  slight  tone  of  irritation  in  her 
voice,  "that  was  very  good  of  you,  but 
of  course  that  was  not  my  going,  and  if 
I  should  let  to-day  pass  without  going 
to  see  her,  when  I  have  just  heard  of  her 
illness,  it  would  be  unfriendly  and  un- 
neighborly  and  I  should  not  forgive 
myself." 

"But,  mother,  you  are  tired;  you  do 
need  to  rest  so  much." 

"My  dear,"  said  the  mother  with  an 
air  of  conscious  virtue,  "I  am  never  too 
tired  to  do  a  neighborly  kindness." 

When  she  left  the  house  her  daughter 
burst  into  tears  and  let  out  the  strain 
which  had  been  accumulating  for  weeks. 

300 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

Finally,  when  she  had  let  down  enough 
to  feel  a  relief,  a  funny  little  smile 
came  through  the  tears. 

''There  is  one  nervously  worn-out  wo- 
man gone  to  comfort  and  lift  up  another 
nervously  worn-out  woman  —  if  that  is 
not  the  blind  leading  the  blind  then  I 
don't  know.  I  wonder  how  long  it  will 
be  before  mamma,  too,  is  in  the  ditch.?" 

This  same  story  could  be  reversed 
with  the  mother  in  the  daughter's  place, 
and  the  daughter  in  the  mother's.  And, 
indeed,  we  see  slight  illustrations  of  it, 
in  one  way  or  the  other,  in  many  families 
and  among  many  friends. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  answer  to  any 
woman's  question,  "Why  am  I  so  ner- 
vous.?" Because  you  do  not  use  common 
sense  in  taking  exercise,  fresh  air,  nourish- 
ment, and  rest. 

Nature   tends   toward   health.      Your 

whole   physical   organism   tends   toward 

301 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

health.  If  you  once  find  yourself  out 
and  begin  to  be  sensible  you  will  find  a 
great,  vigorous  power  carrying  you  along, 
and  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  how  fast 
you  gain.  It  may  be  some  time  before 
Nature  gets  her  own  way  with  you  en- 
tirely, because  when  one  has  been  off 
the  track  for  long  it  must  take  time  to 
readjust;  but  when  we  begin  to  go  with 
the  laws  of  health,  instead  of  against 
them,  we  get  into  a  healthy  current  and 
gain  faster  than  would  have  seemed 
possible  when  we  were  outside  of  it,  ha- 
bitually trying  to  oppose  the  stream. 

The  second  reason  why  women  are 
nervous  is  that  they  do  not  govern  their 
emotions.  Very  often  it  is  the  strain  of 
unpleasant  emotions  that  keeps  women 
nervous,  and  when  we  come  really  to 
understand  we  find  that  the  strain  is 
there  because  the  woman  does  not  get 

her  own  way.    She  has  not  money  enough. 

302 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO   NERVOUS? 

She  has  to  live  with  some  one  she  dis- 
Hkes.  She  feels  that  people  do  not  like 
her  and  are  neglectful  of  her.  She  be- 
lieves that  she  has  too  much  work  to  do. 
She  wishes  that  she  had  more  beauty  in 
her  life. 

Sometimes  a  woman  is  entirely  con- 
scious of  when  or  why  she  fails  to  get 
her  own  way;  then  she  knows  what  she 
is  fretting  about,  and  she  may  even  know 
that  the  fretting  is  a  strain  that  keeps 
her  tired  and  nervously  irritated.  Some- 
times a  woman  is  entirely  unconscious  of 
what  it  is  that  is  keeping  her  in  a  chronic 
state  of  nervous  irritability.  I  have  seen 
a  woman  express  herself  as  entirely  re- 
signed to  the  very  circumstance  or  person 
that  she  was  unconsciously  resisting  so 
fiercely  that  her  resistance  kept  her  ill 
half  of  the  time.  In  such  cases  the  strain 
is  double.    First,  there  is  the  strain  of  the 

person  or  circumstance  chronically  resist- 

303 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

ed  and  secondly,  there  is  the  strain  of  the 
pose  of  saintly  resignation.  It  is  bad 
enough  to  pose  to  other  people,  but  when 
we  pose  to  other  people  and  to  ourselves 
too  the  strain  is  twice  as  bad. 

Imagine  a  nerve  specialist  saying  to  his 
patient,  "My  dear  madam,  you  really 
must  stop  being  a  hypocrite.  You  have 
not  the  nervous  strength  to  spare  for  it." 
In  most  cases,  I  fear,  the  woman  would 
turn  on  him  indignantly  and  go  home 
to  be  more  of  a  hypocrite  than  ever,  and 
so  more  nervously  ill. 

I  have  seen  a  woman  cry  and  make  no 

end  of  trouble  because  she  had  to  have 

a  certain  relative  live  in  the  house  with 

her,   simply   because   her   relative   "got 

on  her  nerves."    Then,  after  the  relative 

had  left  the  house,  this  same  woman  cried 

and  still  kept  on  making  no  end  of  trouble 

because  she  thought  she  had  done  wrong 

in  sending  "Cousin  Sophia"  away;    and 

304 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

the  poor,  innocent,  uncomplaining  victim 
was  brought  back  again.  Yet  it  never 
seemed  to  occur  to  the  nervous  woman 
that  "Cousin  Sophia"  was  harmless,  and 
that  her  trouble  came  entirely  from  the 
way  in  which  she  constantly  resented 
and  resisted  little  unpolished  ways. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  times  "  Cousin 
Sophia"  may  be  sent  off  and  brought 
back  again;  nor  how  many  times  other 
things  in  my  nervous  friend's  life  may 
have  to  be  pulled  to  pieces  and  then  put 
together  again,  for  she  has  not  yet  dis- 
covered that  the  cause  of  the  nervous 
trouble  is  entirely  in  herself,  and  that 
if  she  would  stop  resisting  "Cousin 
Sophia's  "  innocent  peculiarities,  stop  re- 
sisting other  various  phases  of  her  life 
that  do  not  suit  her,  and  begin  to  use 
her  will  to  yield  where  she  has  always 
resisted,  her  load  would  be  steadily  and 

happily  lifted. 

305 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

The  nervous  strain  of  doing  right  is 
very  painful;  especially  so  because  most 
women  who  are  under  this  strain  do  not 
really  care  about  doing  right  at  all.  I 
have  seen  a  woman  quibble  and  talk 
and  worry  about  what  she  believed  to 
be  a  matter  of  right  and  wrong  in  a  few 
cents,  and  then  neglect  for  months  to  pay 
a  poor  man  a  certain  large  amount  of 
money  which  he  had  honestly  earned, 
and  which  she  knew  he  needed. 

The  nervous   conscience   is   really   no 

conscience  at  all.     I  have  seen  a  woman 

worry  over  what  she  owed  to  a  certain 

other  woman  in  the  way   of  kindness, 

and  go  to  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  make 

her  kindness  complete;   and  then,  on  the 

same    day,  show    such    hard,    unfeeling 

cruelty  toward   another   friend  that  she 

wounded  her  deeply,  and  that  without 

a  regret. 

A  nervous  woman's  emotions  are  con- 

306 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

stantly  side-tracking  her  away  from  the 
main  cause  of  her  difficulty,  and  so  keep- 
ing her  nervous.  A  nervous  woman's  de- 
sire to  get  her  own  way  —  and  strained 
rebellion  at  not  getting  her  own  way  — 
bedazzles  or  befogs  her  brain  so  that  her 
nerves  twist  off  into  all  sorts  of  emotions 
which  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  main  cause.  The  woman  with  the 
troublesome  relative  wants  to  be  consid- 
ered good  and  kind  and  generous.  The 
woman  with  the  nervous  money  con- 
science wants  to  be  considered  upright 
and  just  in  her  dealings  with  others.  All 
women  with  various  expressions  of  ner- 
vous conscience  want  to  ease  their  con- 
sciences for  the  sake  of  their  own  comfort 
—  not  in  the  least  for  the  sake  of  doing 
right. 

I  write  first  of  the  nervous  hypocrite 
because  in  her  case  the  nervous  strain  is 
deeper  in  and  more  difficult  to  find.     To 

307 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

watch  such  a  woman  is  like  seeing  her  in 
a  terrible  nightmare,  which  she  steadily 
"  sugar-coats  "  by  her  complacent  belief 
in  her  own  goodness.  If,  among  a  thou- 
sand nervous  "  saints  "  who  may  read  these 
words,  one  is  thereby  enabled  to  find 
herself  out,  they  are  worth  the  pains  of 
writing  many  times  over.  The  nervous 
hypocrites  who  do  not  find  themselves 
out  get  sicker  and  sicker,  until  finally 
they  seem  to  be  of  no  use  except  to  disci- 
pline those  who  have  the  care  of  them. 

The  greatest  trouble  comes  through 
the  befogging  emotions.  A  woman  begins 
to  feel  a  nervous  strain,  and  that  strain 
results  in  exciting  emotions;  these  emo- 
tions again  breed  more  emotions  until 
she  becomes  a  simmering  mass  of  excit- 
ing and  painful  emotions  which  can  be 
aroused  to  a  boiling  point  at  any  moment 
by  anything  or  any  one  who  may  touch 

a  sensitive  point.    When  a  woman's  emo- 

308 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

tions  are  aroused,  and  she  is  allowing 
herself  to  be  governed  by  them,  reason  is 
out  of  the  question,  and  any  one  who 
imagines  that  a  woman  can  be  made  to 
understand  common  sense  in  a  state  like 
that  will  find  himself  entirely  mistaken. 

The  only  cure  is  for  the  woman  her- 
self to  learn  first  how  entirely  impervious 
to  common  sense  she  is  when  she  is  in  the 
midst  of  an  emotional  nerve  storm,  so 
that  she  will  say,  "Don't  try  to  talk  to  me 
now;  I  am  not  reasonable,  wait  until 
I  get  quiet."  Then,  if  she  will  go  off 
by  herself  and  drop  her  emotions,  and 
also  the  strain  behind  her  emotions,  she 
will  often  come  to  a  good,  clear  judgment 
without  outside  help;  or,  if  not,  she  will 
come  to  the  point  where  she  will  be  ready 
and  grateful  to  receive  help  from  a  clearer 
mind  than  her  own. 

"For  goodness'  sake,  don't  tell  that  to 

Alice,"  a  young  fellow  said  of  his  sister. 

309 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

"She  will  have  fits  first,  and  then  indi- 
gestion and  insomnia  for  six  weeks." 

The  lad  was  not  a  nerve  specialist; 
neither  was  he  interested  in  nerves  — 
except  to  get  away  from  them;  but  he 
spoke  truly  from  common  sense  and  his 
own  experience  with  his  sister. 

The  point  is,  to  drop  the  emotions 
and  face  the  facts.  If  nervous  women 
would  see  the  necessity  for  that,  and 
would  practice  it,  it  would  be  surprising 
to  see  how  their  nerves  would  improve. 

I  once  knew  a  woman  who  discovered 
that  her  emotions  were  running  away 
with  her  and  making  her  nervously  ill. 
She  at  once  went  to  work  with  a  will, 
and  every  time  something  happened  to 
rouse  this  great  emotional  wave  she  would 
deliberately  force  herself  to  relax  and  re- 
lax until  the  wave  had  passed  over  her 
and  she  could  see   things   in   a  sensible 

light.    When  she  was  unable  to  go  off  by 

310 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

herself  and  lie  down  to  relax,  she  would 
walk  with  her  mind  bent  on  making  her 
feet  feel  heavy.  When  you  drop  the  ten- 
sion of  the  emotion,  the  emotion  has 
nothing  to  hold  on  to  and  it  must  go. 

I  knew  another  woman  who  did  not 
know  how  to  relax;  so,  to  get  free  from 
this  emotional  excitement,  she  would 
turn  her  attention  at  once  to  figures, 
to  her  personal  accounts  or  even  to  saying 
the  multiplication  table.  The  steady 
concentration  of  her  mind  on  dry  figures 
and  on  ''getting  her  sums  right"  left 
the  rest  of  her  brain  free  to  drop  its 
excitement  and  get  into  a  normal  state 
again. 

Again  it  is  sometimes  owing  to  the 
pleasant  emotions  which  some  women  in- 
dulge in  to  such  an  extreme  that  they 
are  made  ill.  How  many  times  have  we 
heard  of  women  who  were   "worn  to  a 

shred"  by  the  delight  of  an  opera,  or  a 

311 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

concert,  or  an  exciting  play?  If  these 
women  only  knew  it,  their  pleasure  would 
be  far  keener  if  they  would  let  the  en- 
joyment pass  through  them,  instead  of 
tightening  up  in  their  nerves  and  trying 
to  hold  on  to  it. 

Nature  in  us  always  tends  toward 
health,  and  toward  pleasant  sensations.  If 
we  relax  out  of  painful  emotions  we  find 
good  judgment  and  happy  instincts  be- 
hind them.  If  we  relax  so  that  pleasant 
emotions  can  pass  over  our  nerves  they 
leave  a  deposit  of  happy  sensation  behind, 
which  only  adds  to  the  store  that  Nature 
has  provided  for  us. 

To  sum  up:  The  two  main  reasons 
why  women  are  nervous  are  that  they 
do  not  take  intelligent  care  of  their 
bodies,  and  that  they  do  not  govern 
their  emotions ;  but  back  of  these  reasons 
is  the  fact  that  they  want  their  own  way 

altogether  too  much.    Even  if  a  woman's 

312 


WHAT  MAKES  ME  SO  NERVOUS? 

own  way  is  right,  she  has  no  business  to 
push  for  it  selfishly.  If  any  woman 
thinks,  "I  could  take  intelhgent  care  of 
my  own  body  if  I  did  not  have  to  work 
so  hard,  or  have  this  or  that  interference," 
let  her  go  to  work  with  her  mind  well 
armed  to  do  what  she  can,  and  she  will 
soon  find  that  there  are  many  ways  in 
which  she  can  improve  in  the  normal 
care  of  her  body,  in  spite  of  all  the  work 
and  all  the  interferences. 

To  adapt  an  old  saying,  the  women 
who  are  overworked  and  clogged  with 
real  interferences  should  aim  tobehealthv; 
and,  if  they  cannot  be  healthy,  then 
they  should  be  as  healthy  as  they  can. 


313 


Chapter  XXVII 
Positive  and  Negative  Ejff'ort 

DID  you  ever  have  the  grip?  If 
you  ever  have  you  may  know 
how  truly  it  is  named  and  how  it 
does  actually  grip  you  so  that  it  seems 
as  if  there  were  nothing  else  in  the  world 
at  the  time  —  it  appears  to  entirely 
possess  you.  As  the  Irishman  says,  the 
grip  is  ''the  disease  that  lasts  fur  a 
week  and  it  takes  yer  six  weeks  ter 
get  over  it."  That  is  because  it  has 
possessed  you  so  thoroughly  that  it 
must  be  routed  out  of  every  little  fiber 
in  your  body  before  you  are  yourself 
again,  and  there  are  hidden  corners 
where  it  lurks  and  hides,  and  it  often 
has  to  be  actually  pulled  out  of  them. 
Now  it  has  been   already  recognized 

314 


POSITIVE  AND   NEGATIVE   EFFORT 

that  if  we  relax  and  do  not  resist  a 
severe  cold  it  leaves  us  open  so  that 
our  natural  circulation  carries  away 
the  cold  much  more  quickly  than  if 
we  allowed  ourselves  to  be  full  of  re- 
sistance to  the  discomfort  and  the  con- 
sequent physical  contraction  that  im- 
peded the  circulation  and  holds  the  cold 
in  our  system. 

My  point  is  this  —  that  it  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  relax  out  of  a  cold. 
VV^e  can  do  it  with  only  a  negative  effort, 
but  to  relax  so  that  nature  in  her  steady 
and  unswerving  tendency  toward  health 
can  lift  us  out  of  the  grip  is  quite  an- 
other matter.  When  we  feel  ourselves 
entirely  in  the  power  of  such  a  monster 
as  that  is  at  its  worst,  it  is  only  by  a 
very  strong  and  positive  effort  of  the 
will  that  we  can  yield  so  that  nature 
can  guide  us  into  health,  and  we  do  not 
need  the  six  weeks  of  getting  well. 

315 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

In  order  to  gain  this  positive  sense  of 
yielding  away  from  the  disease  rather 
than  of  letting  it  hold  us,  we  must  do 
what  seems  at  the  time  the  impossible  — 
we  must  refuse  to  give  our  attention  to 
the  pain  or  discomfort  and  insist  upon 
giving  our  attention  entirely  to  yield- 
ing out  of  the  contractions  which  the 
painful  discomforts  cause.  In  other 
words,  we  must  give  up  resisting  the 
grip.  It  is  the  same  with  any  other 
disease  or  any  pain.  If  we  have  the 
toothache  and  give  all  our  attention  to 
the  toothache,  it  inevitably  makes  it 
worse;  but  if  we  give  our  attention  to 
yielding  out  of  the  toothache  contrac- 
tions, it  eases  the  pain  even  though  it 
may  be  that  only  the  dentist  can  stop 
it.  Once  I  had  an  ulcerated  tooth  which 
lasted  for  a  week.  I  had  to  yield  so 
steadily  to  do  my  work  during  the  day 
and  to  be  able  to  sleep  at  all  at  night 

316 


POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  EFFORT 

that  it  not  only  made  the  pain  bearable, 
but  when  the  tooth  got  well  I  was  sur- 
prised to  find  how  many  habitual  eon- 
tractions  I  had  dropped  and  how  much 
more  freedom  of  action  I  had  before  my 
tooth  began  to  ulcerate.  I  should  not 
wish  to  have  another  ulcerated  tooth  in 
order  that  I  might  gain  more  freedom, 
but  I  should  wish  to  take  every  pain  of 
body  and  mind  so  truly  that  when  the 
pain  was  over  I  should  have  gained 
greater  freedom  than  I  had  before  it 
began. 

You  see  it  is  the  same  with  every  pain 
and  with  every  disease.  Nature  tends 
toward  health  and  if  we  make  the  disease 
simply  a  reminder  to  yield  —  and  to 
yield  more  deeply  —  and  to  put  our 
positive  effort  there,  we  are  opening 
the  way  for  nature  to  do  her  best  work. 
If  our  entire  attention  is  given  to  yield- 
ing and  we  give  no  attention  whatever 

317 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

to  the  pain,  except  as  a  reminder  to 
yield,  the  result  seems  wonderful.  It 
seems  wonderful  because  so  few  of  us 
have  the  habit  of  giving  our  entire 
attention  to  gaining  our  real  freedom. 

With  most  of  us,  the  disease  or  dis- 
comfort is  positive,  and  our  effort  against 
it  is  negative  or  no  effort  at  all.  A  nega- 
tive effort  probably  protects  us  from 
worse  evil,  but  that  is  all ;  it  does  not 
seem  to  me  that  it  can  ever  take  us 
ahead,  whereas  a  positive  effort,  while 
sometimes  we  seem  to  move  upward 
in  very  slow  stages,  often  takes  us  in 
great  strides  out  of  the  enemy's  country. 

If  we  have  the  measles,  the  whooping 
cough,  scarlet  fever  —  even  more  serious 
diseases  —  and  make  the  disease  nega- 
tive and  our  effort  to  free  ourselves  from 
it  positive,  the  result  is  one  thousand 
times  worth  while.  And  where  the  chil- 
dren have  the  measles  and  the  whooping 

318 


POSITIVE   AND   NEGATIVE   EFFORT 

cough,  and  do  not  know  how  to  help 
nature,  the  mothers  can  be  positive  for 
the  children  and  make  their  measles 
and  whooping  cough  negative.  The 
positive  attitude  of  a  mother  toward 
her  sick  child  puts  impatience  or  despair 
out  of  the  question. 

Do  not  think  that  I  believe  one  can 
be  positive  all  at  once.  We  must  work 
hard  and  insist  over  and  over  again 
before  we  can  attain  the  positive  atti- 
tude and  having  attained  it,  we  have  to 
lose  it  and  gain  it  again,  lose  it  and  gain 
it  again,  many  times  before  we  get  the 
habit  of  making  all  difficulties  of  mind 
and  body  negative,  and  our  healthy 
attitude  toward  conquering  them  posi- 
tive. 

I  said  'difficulties  of  mind  and  body." 
I  might  better  have  said  '*  difficulties 
of  body,  mind  and  character,"  or  even 
character  alone,  for,  after  all,  when  you 

319 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

come  to  sift  things  down,  it  is  the 
character  that  is  at  the  root  of  all  human 
life.  1 

I  know  a  woman  who  is  contantly 
complaining.  Every  morning  she  has  a 
series  of  pains  to  tell  of,  and  her  com- 
plaints spout  out  of  her  in  a  half-ir- 
ritated, whining  tone  as  naturally  as 
she  breathes.  Over  and  over  you  think 
when  you  listen  to  her  how  useful  all 
those  pains  of  hers  would  be  if  she  took 
them  as  a  reminder  to  yield  and  in 
yielding  to  do  her  work  better.  But 
if  one  should  venture  to  suggest  such  a 
possibility,  it  would  only  increase  the 
complaints  by  one  more  —  that  of  hav- 
ing unsympathetic  friends  and  being 
misunderstood.  "Nobody  understands 
me  —  nobody  understands  me."  How 
often  we  hear  that  complaint.  How  often 
in  hearing  it  we  make  the  mental  ques- 
tion, ''Do  you  understand  yourself  .f^" 


POSITIVE  AND   NEGATIVE   EFFORT 

You  see  the  greatest  impediment  to 
our  understanding  ourselves  is  our  un- 
willingness to  see  what  is  not  good  in 
ourselves.  It  is  easy  enough  in  a  self- 
righteous  attitude  of  what  we  believe 
to  be  humility  to  find  fault  with  our- 
selves, but  quite  another  thing  when 
others  find  fault  with  us.  When  we 
are  giving  our  attention  to  discomforts 
and  pains  in  a  way  to  give  them  positive 
power,  and  some  one  suggests  that  we 
might  change  our  aim,  then  the  resist- 
ance and  resentment  that  are  roused 
in  us  are  very  indicative  of  just  where 
we  are  in  our  character. 

Another  strong  indication  of  allowing 
our  weaknesses  and  faults  to  be  positive 
and  our  effort  against  them  negative  is 
the  destructive  habit  of  giving  excuses. 
If  fault  is  found  with  us  and  there  is 
justice  in  it,  it  does  not  make  the  slightest 
difference  how  many  things  we  have  done 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

that  are  good,  or  how  much  better  we 
do  than  some  one  else  does  —  the  posi- 
tive way  is  to  say  "thank  you"  in  spirit 
and  in  words,  and  to  aim  directly  toward 
freeing  ourselves  from  the  fault.  How 
ridiculous  it  would  seem  if  when  we  were 
told  that  we  had  a  smooch  on  our  left 
cheek,  we  were  to  insist  vehemently 
upon  the  cleanliness  of  our  right  cheek, 
or  our  forehead,  or  our  hands,  instead 
of  being  grateful  that  our  attention 
should  be  called  to  the  smooch  and  tak- 
ing soap  and  water  and  at  once  washing 
it  off.  Or  how  equally  absurd  it  would 
be  if  we  went  into  long  explanations  as 
to  how  the  smooch  would  not  have  been 
there  if  it  had  not  been  for  so  and  so, 
and  so  and  so,  or  so  and  so,  —  and 
then  with  all  our  excuses  and  expla- 
nations and  protestations,  we  let  the 
smooch  stay  —  and  never  really  wash 
it  off. 

322 


POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  EFFORT 

And  yet  this  is  not  an  exaggeration 
of  what  most  of  us  do  when  our  atten- 
tion is  called  to  defects  of  character. 
W^hen  we  excuse  and  explain  and  tell 
how  clean  the  other  side  of  our  face  is, 
we  are  putting  ourselves  positively  on 
the  side  of  the  smooch.  So  we  are 
putting  ourselves  entirely  on  the  side 
of  the  illness  or  the  pain  or  the  oppres- 
sion of  difficult  circumstances  when  we 
give  excuses  or  resist  or  pretend  not  to 
see  fault  in  ourselves,  or  when  we  confess 
faults  and  are  contented  about  them,  or 
when  we  give  all  our  attention  to  what 
is  disagreeable  and  no  attention  to  the 
normal  way  of  gaining  our  health  or  our 
freedom. 

Then  all  these  expressions  of  self  or 
of  illness  are  to  us  positive,  and  our 
efforts  against  them  only  negative.  In 
such  cases,  of  course,  the  self  possesses 
us  as  surely  as  the  grip  possesses  us  when 

323 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

we  succumb  entirely  to  all  its  horrors 
and  make  no  positive  effort  to  yield 
out  of  it.  And  the  possession  of  the 
self  is  much  worse,  much  deeper,  much 
more  subtle.  When  possessed  with 
selfishness,  we  are  laying  up  in  our 
subconsciousness  any  number  of  self- 
seeking  motives  which  come  to  the  sur- 
face disguised  and  compel  us  to  make 
impulsive  and  often  foolish  efforts  to 
gain  our  own  ends.  The  self  is  every 
day  proving  to  be  the  enemy  of  the  man 
or  woman  whom  it  possesses. 

God  leaves  us  free  to  obey  Him  or  to 
choose  our  own  selfish  way,  and  in  His 
infinite  Providence  He  is  constantly 
showing  us  that  our  own  selfish  way 
leads  to  death  and  obedience  to  Him 
leads  to  life.  That  is,  that  only  in 
obedience  to  Him  do  we  find  our  real 
freedom.  He  is  constantly  showering 
us  with  a  tender  generosity  and  kind- 

S24 


POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  EFFORT 

ness  that  seems  inconceivable,  and  some- 
times it  seems  as  if  more  often  than  not 
we  were  refusing  to  see.  Indeed  we 
bhnd  ourselves  by  making  all  pains  of 
body  and  faults  of  soul  positive  and  our 
efforts  against  them  negative. 

If  we  had  a  disagreeable  habit  which 
we  wanted  to  conquer  and  asked  a 
friend  to  remind  us  with  a  pinch  every 
time  he  saw  the  habit,  wouldn't  it  seem 
very  strange  if  when  he  pinched  us, 
according  to  agreement,  we  jumped  and 
turned  on  him,  rubbing  our  arm  with 
indignation  that  he  should  have  pinched  ? 
Or  would  it  not  be  even  funnier  if  we 
made  the  pinch  merely  a  reminder  to 
go  on  with  the  habit? 

The  Lord  is  pinching  us  in  that  way 
all  the  time,  and  we  respond  by  being 
indignant  at  or  complaining  at  our  fate, 
or  reply  by  going  more  deeply  into  our 
weaknesses    of    character    by    allowing 

325 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

them  to  be  positive  and  the  pinches  only 
to  emphasize  them  to  us. 

One  trouble  is  that  we  do  not  recognize 
that  there  is  an  agreement  between  us 
and  the  Lord,  or  that  we  recognize  and 
then  forget  it;    and  yet  there  should  be 

—  there  is  —  more  than  an  agreement, 
there  is  a  covenant.  And  the  Lord  is 
steadily,  unswervingly  doing  His  part, 
and  we  are  constantly  failing  in  ours. 
The  Lord  in  His  loving  kindness  pinches 

—  that  is,  reminds  us  —  and  we  in  our 
stupid  selfishness  do  not  use  His  re- 
minders. 

As  an  example  of  making  our  faults 
positive  and  our  effort  to  conquer  them 
negative,  one  very  common  form  is 
found  in  a  woman  I  know,  who  has  times 
of  informing  her  friends  quite  seriously 
and  with  apparent  regret  of  her  very 
wrong  attitudes  of  mind.  She  tells  how 
selfish  she  is  and  she  gives  examples  of 

326 


POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  EFFORT 

the  absolute  selfishness  of  her  thoughts 
when   she  is   appearing   to   do   unselfish 
things.     She    tells    of    her  efforts  to   do 
better  and  confesses  what  she  believes 
to  be  the  absolute  futility  of  her  effort. 
At  first  I  was  quite  taken  in  by  these 
confessions,     and     attracted     by     what 
seemed  to  be  a  clear  understanding  of 
herself  and  her  own  motives,  but  after 
a   little   longer    acquaintance   with   her, 
made  the  discovery,  which  was  at  first 
surprising  to  me,  that  her  confessions  of 
evil  came  just  as  much  from  conceit  as  if 
she   had    been    standing   at    the    mirror 
admiring  her  own  beauty.     Selfish  sat- 
isfaction is  often  found  quite  as  much 
in  mental  attitudes  of  grief  as  in  sen- 
sations of  joy.     Finally  this  woman  has 
recognized    for    herself    the    conceit    in 
her  contemplation  of  her  faults,  and  that 
she   has   not   only   allowed   them   to   be 
positive  while  her  attitude  against  them 

327 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

is  negative ;  she  has  actually  nursed 
them  and  been  positive  herself  with  their 
positiveness.  Her  attitude  against  them 
was  therefore  more  than  ordinarily  nega- 
tive. 

The  more  common  way  of  being  nega- 
tive while  we  allow  our  various  forms  of 
selfishness  to  positively  govern  us  is, 
first  in  bewailing  a  weakness  seriously, 
but  constantly  looking  at  it  and  weeping 
over  it,  and  in  that  way  suggesting  it 
over  and  over  to  our  brains  so  that  we 
are  really  hypnotizing  ourselves  with  the 
fault  and  enforcing  its  expression  when 
we  think  we  are  in  the  effort  to  conquer 
it.     Such  is  our  negative  attitude. 

Now  if  we  are  convinced  that  evil 
in  ourselves  has  no  power  unless  we  give 
it  power,  that  is  the  first  step  toward 
making  our  efforts  positive  and  so  nega- 
tiving the  evil.  If  we  are  convinced 
that  evil  in  ourselves  has  not  only  no 

328 


POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  EFFOUT 

power  but  no  importance  unless  we  give 
it  power,  that  is  a  step  still  farther  in 
advance.  The  next  step  is  to  refuse  to 
submit  to  it  and  refuse  to  resist  it.  That 
means  a  positive  yielding  away  from 
it  and  a  positive  attention  to  doing  our 
work  as  well  as  we  can  do  it,  whatever 
that  work  may  be. 

There  is  one  way  in  which  people  suffer 
intensely  through  being  negative  and 
allowing  their  temptations  to  be  positive, 
and  that  is  in  the  question  of  inherited 
evil.  "How  can  I  ever  amount  to  any- 
thing with  such  inheritances?  If  you 
could  see  my  father  and  what  he  is, 
and  know  that  I  am  his  daughter,  you 
would  easily  appreciate  why  I  have  no 
hope  for  myself,"  said  a  young  woman, 
and  she  was  perfectly  sincere  in  believing 
that  because  of  her  inherited  tempta- 
tions her  life  must  be  worthless.  It  took 
time  and  gentle,  intelligent  reasoning  to 

329 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

convince  her  that  not  only  are  no  in- 
herited forms  of  selfishness  ours  unless 
by  indulging  we  make  them  ours,  but 
that  through  knowing  our  inheritances, 
we  are  forewarned  and  forearmed,  and 
the  strength  we  gain  from  positive  effort 
to  free  ourselves  fully  compensates  us 
for  what  we  have  suffered  in  oppression 
from  them.  Such  is  the  loving  kindness 
of  our  Creator. 

This  woman  of  whom  I  am  writing 
awoke  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  story 
of  the  man  who  asked,  before  he  went 
with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  first  to  go 
back  and  bury  his  father.  The  Lord  an- 
swered, "Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead, 
and  come  thou  and  follow  me."  When 
we  feel  that  we  must  be  bound  down  by 
our  inheritances,  we  are  surely  not  let-- 
ting  the  dead  bury  their  dead. 

And  so  let  us  study  the  whole  question 
more  carefully  and  learn  the  necessity 

330 


POSITIVE  AND  NEGATIVE  EFFORT 

of  letting  all  that  is  sickness  and  all 
that  is  evil  be  negative  to  us  and  our 
efforts  to  conquer  it  be  positive;  in 
that  way  the  illness  and  the  evil  become 
less  than  negative,  —  they  gradually  are 
removed  and  disappear. 
I  Why,  in  the  mere  matter  of  being 
tired,  if  we  refuse  to  let  the  impression 
of  the  fatigue  be  positive  to  us,  and 
insist  upon  being  positive  ourselves  in 
giving  attention  to  the  fact  that  now  we 
are  going  to  rest,  we  get  rested  in  half 
the  time,  —  in  much  less  than  half  the 
time.  Some  people  carry  chronic  fatigue 
with  them  because  of  their  steady  atten- 
tion to  fatigue. 

''I  am  tired,  yes,  but  I  am  going  to  get 
rested r'  That  is  the  sensible  attitude  of 
mind. 

Nature  tends  toward  health.  As  we 
realize  that  and  give  our  attention  to  it 
positively,  we  come  to  admire  and  love 

331 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

the  healthy  working  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  to  feel  the  vigor  of  interest  in  trying 
to  obey  them  intelligently.  Nature's 
laws  are  God's  laws,  and  God's  laws 
tend  toward  the  health  of  the  spirit  in 
all  matters  of  the  spirit  as  surely  as 
they  tend  toward  health  of  body  in  all 
natural  things.  That  is  a  truth  that 
as  we  work  to  obey  we  grow  to  see  and 
to  love  with  deepening  reverence,  and 
then  indeed  we  find  that  God's  laws  are 
all  positive,  and  that  the  workings  of 
self  are  only  negative. 


332 


Chapter  XXVIII 
Human  Dust 

WHEN  we  face  the  matter  squarely 
and  give  it  careful  thought,  it 
seems  to  appear  very  plainly 
that  the  one  thing  most  flagrantly  in 
the  way  of  the  people  of  to-day  living 
according  to  plain  common  sense  — 
spiritual  common  sense  as  well  as 
material  —  is  the  fact  that  we  are  all 
living  in  a  chronic  state  of  excitement. 
It  is  easy  to  prove  this  fact  by  seeing  how 
soon  most  of  us  suffer  froiji  ennui  when 
"there  is  not  anything  going  on."  It 
seems  now  as  if  the  average  man  or 
woman  whom  we  see  would  find  it 
quite  impossible  to  stop  and  do  nothing 
—  for  an  hour  or  more.  ''But,"  some 
one  will  say,   ''why  should  I  stop  and 

333 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

do  nothing  when  I  am  as  busy  as  I  can 
be  all  day  long,  and  have  my  time  very 
happily  full?"  Or  some  one  else  may 
say,  "How  can  I  stop  and  do  nothing 
when  I  am  nearly  crazy  with  work  and 
must  feel  that  it  is  being  accomplished?" 

Now  the  answer  to  that  is,  "Certainly 
you  should  not  stop  and  do  nothing  when 
you  are  busy  and  happily  busy;"  or, 
"Although  your  work  will  go  better  if 
you  do  not  get  '  crazy '  about  it,  there  is 
no  need  of  interrupting  it  or  delaying 
it  by  stopping  to  do  nothing  —  but  you 
should  be  able  to  stop  and  do  nothing, 
and  to  do  it  quietly  and  contentedly 
at  any  time  when  it  might  be  required 
of  you." 

No  man,  woman,  or  child  knows  the 
power,  the  very  great  power,  for  work  — 
and  play  —  there  is  with  one  who  has  in 
the  background  always  the  ability  to 
stop  and  do  nothing. 

334 


HUMAN  DUST 

If  we  observe  enough,  carefully  enough, 
and  quietly  enough,  to  get  sensitive  to 
it,  we  can  see  how  every  one  about  us 
is  living  in  excitement.  I  have  seen 
women  with  nothing  important  to  do 
come  down  to  breakfast  in  excitement, 
give  their  orders  for  the  day  as  if  they 
were  about  running  for  a  fire;  and  the 
standard  of  all  those  about  them  is  so 
low  that  no  one  notices  what  a  human 
dust  is  stirred  up  by  all  this  flutter  over 
nothing. 

A  man  told  me  not  long  ago  that  he 
got  tired  out  for  the  day  in  walking  to 
his  office  with  a  friend,  because  they 
both  talked  so  intensely.  And  that  is 
not  an  unusual  experience.  This  chronic 
state  of  strain  and  excitement  in  every- 
day matters  makes  a  mental  atmosphere 
which  is  akin  to  what  the  material 
atmosphere  would  be  if  we  were  per- 
sistently kicking  up  a  dust  in  the  road 

335 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

every  step  we  took.  Every  one  seems 
to  be  stirring  up  his  own  especial  and 
peculiar  dust  and  adding  it  to  every  one 
else's  especial  and  peculiar  dust. 

We  are  all  mentally,  morally  and  spirit- 
ually sneezing  or  choking  with  our  own 
dust  and  the  dust  of  other  people.  How 
is  it  possible  for  us  to  get  any  clear,  all- 
round  view  of  life  so  long  as  the  dust 
stirring  habit  is  on  us  ?  So  far  from 
being  able  to  enlarge  our  horizon,  we 
can  get  no  horizon  at  all,  and  so  no 
perspective  until  this  human  dust  is 
laid.  And  there  is  just  this  one  thing 
about  it,  that  is  a  delight  to  think  of: 
When  we  know  how  to  live  so  that  our 
own  dust  is  laid,  that  very  habit  of  life 
keeps  us  clear  from  the  dust  of  other 
people.  Not  only  that,  but  when  we 
are  free  from  dust  ourselves,  the  dust 
that  the  other  men  are  stirring  up  about 
us  does  not  interfere  with  our  view  of 

336 


HUMAN  DUST 

them.  We  see  the  men  through  their 
dust  and  we  see  how  the  dust  with  which 
they  are  surrounding  themselves  befogs 
them  and  impedes  their  progress.  From 
the  place  of  no  dust  you  can  distinguish 
dust  and  see  through  it.  From  the  place 
of  dust  you  cannot  distinguish  anything 
clearly.  Therefore,  if  one  wishes  to 
learn  the  standards  of  living  according 
to  plain  common  sense,  for  body,  mind, 
and  spirit,  and  to  apply  the  principles 
of  such  standards  practically  to  their 
eveiy-day  life,  the  first  absolute  necessity 
is  to  get  quiet  and  to  stay  quiet  long 
enough  to  lay  the  dust. 

You  may  know  the  laws  of  right  eat- 
ing, of  right  breathing,  of  exercise,  and 
rest  —  but  in  this  dust  of  excitement  in 
daily  life  such  knowledge  helps  one 
very  little.  You  constantly  forget,  and 
forget,  and  forget.  Or,  if  in  a  moment 
of  forced  acknowledgment  to  the  need 

337 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

of  better  living,  you  make  up  your  mind 
that  you  will  live  according  to  sensible 
laws  of  hygiene,  you  go  along  pretty 
well  for  a  few  weeks,  perhaps  even 
months,  and  then  as  you  feel  better 
physically,  you  get  whirled  off  into  the 
excitement  again,  and  before  you  know 
it  you  are  in  the  dust  with  the  rest  of 
the  world,  and  all  because  you  had  no 
background  for  your  good  resolutions. 
You  never  had  found  and  you  did  not 
understand  quiet. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  wise  mother  come 
into  a  noisy  nursery  where  perhaps  her 
own  children  were  playing  excitedly  with 
several  little  companions,  who  had  been 
invited  in  to  spend  a  rainy  afternoon? 
The  mother  sees  all  the  children  in  a 
great  state  of  excitement  over  their 
play,  and  two  or  three  of  them  disagree- 
ing over  some  foolish  little  matter,  with 
their   brains   in   such   a   state   that   the 

338 


HUMAN  DUST 

nursery  is  thick  with  infantile  human 
dust.  What  does  the  wise  mother  do? 
Add  dust  of  her  own  by  scolding  and 
fretting  and  fuming  over  the  noise  that 
the  children  are  making  ?  No  —  no  in- 
deed. She  first  gets  all  the  children's 
attention  in  any  happy  way  she  can, 
one  or  two  at  a  time,  and  then  when  she 
has  their  individual  attention  to  a  small 
degree,  she  gets  their  united  attention 
by  inviting  their  interest  in  being  so 
quiet  that  they  ''can  hear  a  pin  drop." 
The  children  get  keenly  interested  in 
listening.  The  first  time  they  do  not 
hear  the  pin  drop  because  Johnnie  or 
MoUie  moved  a  little.  Mother  talks 
with  interest  of  what  a  very  delightful 
thing  it  is  to  be  for  a  little  while  so  quiet 
that  we  can  hear  a  pin  drop.  The  second 
time  something  interferes,  and  the  third 
time  the  children  have  become  so  well 
focused  on  listening,  that  the  little  deli- 

339 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

cate  sound  is  heard  distinctly,  and  they 
beg  mother  to  try  and  see  if  they  can- 
not hear  it  again.  By  this  time  the  dust 
is  laid  in  the  nursery,  and  by  changing 
the  games  a  little,  or  telling  them  a 
story  first,  the  mother  is  able  to  leave  a 
nursery  full  of  quiet,  happy  children. 

Now  if  we,  who  would  like  to  live 
happily  and  keep  well,  according  to 
plain  common  sense,  can  put  ourselves 
with  intelligent  humility  in  the  place 
of  these  little  children  and  study  to  be 
quiet,  we  will  be  working  for  that  back- 
ground which  is  never  failing  in  its 
possibilities  of  increasing  light  and 
warmth  and  the  expanse  of  outlook. 

First  with  regard  to  a  quiet  body. 
Indigestion  makes  us  unquiet,  therefore 
we  must  eat  only  wholesome  food,  and 
not  too  much  of  it,  and  we  must  eat  it 
quietly.  Poor  breathing  and  poor  blood 
makes  us  unquiet,  therefore  we  should 

340 


HUMAN  DUST 

learn  to  expand  our  lungs  to  their  full 
extent  in  the  fresh  air  and  give  the  blood 
plenty  of  oxygen.  Breathing  also  has 
a  direct  effect  on  the  circulation  and  the 
brain,  and  when  we  breathe  quietly  and 
rhythmically,  we  are  quieting  the  move- 
ment of  our  blood  as  well  as  opening 
the  channels  so  that  it  can  flow  without 
interruption.  We  are  also  quieting  our 
brain  and  so  our  whole  nervous  system. 

Lack  of  exercise  makes  us  unquiet, 
because  exercise  supplies  the  blood  more 
fully  with  oxygen  and  prevents  it  from 
flowing  sluggishly,  a  sluggish  circulation 
straining  the  nervous  system.  It  is 
therefore  important  to  take  regular  exer- 
cise. 

Want  of  rest  especially  makes  us  un- 
quiet; therefore  we  should  attend  to 
it  that  we  get  —  as  far  as  possible  — 
what  rest  we  need,  and  take  all  the  rest 
we   get   in  the  best   way.     We"  cannot 

341 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

expect  to  fulfill  these  conditions  all  at 
once,  but  we  can  aim  steadily  to  do  so, 
and  by  getting  every  day  a  stronger 
focus  and  a  steadier  aim  we  can  gain  so 
greatly  in  fulfilling  the  standards  of  a 
healthy  mind  in  a  healthy  body,  and  so 
much  of  our  individual  dust  will  be 
laid,  that  I  may  fairly  promise  a  happy 
astonishment  at  the  view  of  life  which 
will  open  before  us,  and  the  power  for 
use  and  enjoyment  that  will  come. 

Let  us  see  now  how  we  would  begin 
practically,  having  made  up  our  minds 
to  do  all  in  our  power  to  lay  the  dust  and 
get  a  quiet  background.  We  must  begin 
in  what  may  seem  a  very  small  way. 
It  seems  to  be  always  the  small  beginnings 
that  lead  to  large  and  solidly  lasting 
results.  Not  only  that,  but  when  we 
begin  in  the  small  way  and  the  right 
way  to  reach  any  goal,  we  can  find  no 
short  cuts   and   no    seven-league  boots. 

342 


HUMAN  DUST 

We  must  take  every  step  and  take  it 
decidedly  in  order  to  really  get  there. 
We  must  place  one  brick  and  then 
another,  exactly,  and  place  every  brick  — 
to  make  a  house  that  will  stand. 

But  now  for  our  first  step  toward  lay- 
ing the  dust.  Let  us  take  half  an  hour 
every  day  and  do  nothing  in  it.  For 
the  first  ten  minutes  we  will  probably 
be  wretched,  for  the  next  ten  minutes 
we  may  be  more  wretched,  but  for  the 
last  five  minutes  we  will  get  a  sense  of 
quiet  and  at  first  the  dust,  although  not 
laid,  will  cease  to  whirl.  And  then  —  an 
interesting  fact  —  what  seems  to  us  quiet 
in  the  beginning  of  our  attempt,  will 
seem  like  noise  and  whirlwinds,  after 
we  have  gone  further  along.  Some  one 
may  easily  say  that  it  is  absurd  to  take 
half  an  hour  a  day  to  do  nothing  in.  Or 
that  "Nature  abhors  a  vacuum,  and  how 
is  it  possible  to  do  nothing  ?     Our  minds 

343 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

will  be  thinking  of  or  working  on  some- 
thing." 

In  answer  to  this,  I  might  say  with  the 
Irishman,  ''Be  aisy,  but  if  you  can't  be 
aisy,  be  as  aisy  as  you  can !"  Do  noth- 
ing as  well  as  you  can.  When  you  begin 
thinking  of  anything,  drop  it.  When 
you  feel  restless  and  as  if  you  could  not 
keep  still  another  minute,  relax  and 
make  yourself  keep  still.  I  should  take 
many  days  of  this  insistence  upon  doing 
nothing  and  dropping  everything  from 
my  mind  before  taking  the  next  step. 
For  to  drop  everything  from  one's  mind 
for  half  an  hour  is  not  by  any  means 
an  easy  matter.  Our  minds  are  full  of 
interests,  full  of  resistances.  With  some 
of  us,  our  minds  are  full  of  resentment. 
And  what  we  have  to  promise  ourselves 
to  do  is  for  that  one-half  hour  a  day  to 
take  nothing  into  consideration.  If 
something  comes  up  that  we  are  worry- 

844 


HUMAN  DUST 

ing  about,  refuse  to  consider  it.  If 
some  resentment  to  a  person  or  a  cir- 
cumstance comes  to  mind,  refuse  to 
consider  it. 

I  know  all  this  is  easier  to  say  than 
to  do,  but  remember,  please,  that  it  is 
only  for  half  an  hour  every  day  —  only 
half  an  hour.     Refuse  to  consider  any- 
thing for  half  an  hour.     Having  learned 
to  sit  still,  or  lie  still,  and  think  of  nothing 
with  a  moderate  degree  of  success,  and 
with  most  people  the  success  can  only  be 
moderate  at  best,  the  next  step  is  to  think 
quietly  of  taking  long,  gentle,  easy  breaths 
for  half    an    hour.     A  long  breath  and 
then  a  rest,  two  long  breaths  and  then  a 
rest.     One  can  quiet  and  soothe  oneself 
inside  quite  wonderfully  with  the  study 
of    long    gentle    breaths.     But    it    must 
be  a  study.     We  must  study  to  begin 
inhaling   gently,    to   change   to   the   ex- 
halation   with    equal    delicacy,    and    to 

345 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

keep  the  same  gentle,  delicate  pressure 
throughout,  each  time  trying  to  make  the 
breath  a  little  longer. 

After  we  have  had  many  days  of  the 
gentle,  long  breaths  at  intervals  for 
half  an  hour,  then  we  can  breathe 
rhythmically  (inhale  counting  five  or 
ten,  exhale  counting  five  or  ten),  steadily 
for  half  an  hour,  trying  all  the  time  to 
have  the  breath  more  quiet,  gentle  and 
steady,  drawing  it  in  and  letting  it  out 
with  always  decreasing  effort.  It  is 
wonderful  when  we  discover  how  little 
effort  we  really  need  to  take  a  full  and 
vigorous  breath.  This  half  hour's  breath- 
ing exercise  every  day  will  help  us  to  the 
habit  of  breathing  rhythmically  all  the 
time,  and  a  steady  rhythmic  breath  is  a 
great  physical  help  toward  a  quiet  mind. 

We  can  mingle  with  the  deep  breath- 
ing simple  exercises  of  lifting  each  arm 
slowly  and  heavily  from  the  shoulder, 

346 


HUMAN  DUST 

and  then  letting  it  drop  a  dead  weight, 
and  pausing  while  we  feel  conscious  of 
our  arms  resting  without  tension  in  the 
lap  or  on  the  couch. 

»  But  all  this  has  been  with  relation  to 
the  body,  and  it  is  the  mental  and  moral 
dust  of  which  I  am  writing.  The  phys- 
ical work  for  quiet  is  only  helpful  as 
it  makes  the  body  a  better  instrument 
for  the  mind  and  for  the  will.  A  quiet 
body  is  of  no  use  if  it  contains  an  unquiet 
mind  which  is  going  to  pull  it  out  of  shape 
or  start  it  up  in  agitation  at  the  least 
provocation.  In  such  a  case,  the  quiet 
body  in  its  passive  state  is  only  a  more 
responsive  instrument  to  the  mind  that 
wants  to  raise  a  dust.  One  —  and  the 
most  helpful  way  of  quieting  the  mind 
—  is  through  a  steady  effort  at  concen- 
tration. One  can  concentrate  on  doing 
nothing  —  that  is,  on  sitting  quietly  in  a 
chair  or  lying  quietly  on  the  bed  or  the 

347 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

floor.  Be  quiet,  keep  quiet,  be  quiet, 
keep  quiet.  That  is  the  form  of  concen- 
tration, that  is  the  way  of  learning  to  do 
nothing  to  advantage.  Then  we  con- 
centrate on  the  quiet  breathing,  to  have 
it  gentle,  steady,  and  without  strain. 
In  the  beginning  we  must  take  care  to 
concentrate  without  strain,  and  without 
emotion,  use  our  minds  quietly,  as  one 
might  watch  a  bird  who  was  very  near, 
to  see  what  it  will  do  next,  and  with  care 
not  to  frighten  it  away. 

These  are  the  great  secrets  of  true 
strengthening  concentration.  The  first 
is  dropping  everything  that  interferes. 
The  second  is  working  to  concentrate 
easily  without  emotion.  They  are  really 
one  and  the  same.  If  we  work  to  drop 
everything  that  interferes,  we  are  so 
constantly  relaxing  in  order  to  concen- 
trate that  the  very  process  drops  strain 
bit  by  bit,  little  by  little. 

348 


HUMAN  DUST 

An  unquiet  mind,  however,  full  of 
worries,  anxieties,  resistances,  resent- 
ments, and  full  of  all  varieties  of  agita- 
tion, going  over  and  over  things  to  try 
to  work  out  problems  that  are  not  in 
human  hands,  or  complaining  and  fret- 
ting and  puzzling  because  help  seems  to 
be  out  of  human  power,  such  a  mind 
which  is  befogged  and  begrimed  by  the 
agitation  of  its  own  dust  is  not  a  cause 
in  itself  —  it  is  an  effect.  The  cause 
is  the  reaching  and  grasping,  the  un- 
reasonable insistence  on  its  own  way  of 
kicking,  dust-raising  self-will  at  the  back 
of  the  mind. 

A  quiet  will,  a  will  that  can  remain 
quiet  through  all  emergencies,  is  not  a 
self-will.  It  is  the  self  that  raises  the 
dust  —  the  self  that  wants,  and  strains 
to  get  its  own  way,  and  turns  and  twists 
and  writhes  if  it  does  not  get  its  own 
way. 

349 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

God's  will  is  quiet.  We  see  it  in  the 
growth  of  the  trees  and  the  flowers.  We 
see  it  in  the  movement  of  the  planets 
of  the  Universe.  We  see  God's  mind  in 
the  wonderful  laws  of  natural  science. 
Most  of  all  we  see  and  feel,  when  we  get 
quiet  ourselves,  God's  love  in  every- 
thing and  every  one. 

If  we  want  the  dust  laid,  we  must 
work  to  get  our  bodies  quiet.  We  must 
drop  all  that  interferes  with  quiet  in 
our  minds,  and  we  must  give  up  wanting 
our  own  way.  We  must  believe  that 
God's  way  is  immeasurably  beyond  us 
and  that  if  we  work  quietly  to  obey  Him, 
He  will  reveal  to  us  His  way  in  so  far 
as  we  need  to  know  it,  and  will  prepare  us 
for  and  guide  us  to  His  uses. 

The  most  perfect  example  we  have  of 
a  quiet  mind  in  a  quiet  body,  guided  by 
the  Divine  Will,  is  in  the  character  of 
the   Lord   Jesus    Christ.     As   we   study 

350 


HUMAN  DUST 

His  words  and  His  works,  we  realize 
the  power  and  the  deHcacy  of  His  human 
life,  and  we  realize  —  as  far  as  we  are 
capable  of  realizing  —  the  absolute  clear- 
ness of  the  atmosphere  about  Him.  We 
see  and  feel  that  atmosphere  to  be  full 
of  quiet  —  Divine  Human  Love. 

There  is  no  suffering,  no  temptation, 
that  any  man  or  woman  ever  had  or 
ever  will  have  that  He  did  not  meet  in 
Himself  and  conquer.  Therefore,  if  we 
mean  to  begin  the  work  in  ourselves  of 
finding  the  quiet  which  will  lay  our  own 
dust  from  the  very  first,  if  we  have  the 
end  in  our  minds  of  truer  obedience  and 
loving  trust,  we  can,  even  in  the  simple  be- 
ginning of  learning  to  do  nothing  quietly, 
find  an  essence  of  life  which  eventually 
we  will  learn  always  to  recognize  and  to 
love,  and  to  know  that  it  is  not  our- 
selves, but  it  is  from  the  Heavenly 
Father  of  ourselves. 

351 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

Some  of  us  cannot  get  that  motive  to 
begin  with;  some  of  us  will,  if  we  begin 
at  all,  work  only  for  relief,  or  because 
we  recognize  that  there  is  more  power 
without  dust  than  with  it,  but  no  one 
of  us  is  ever  safe  from  clouds  of  dust  un- 
less at  the  back  of  all  our  work  there  is 
the  desire  to  give  up  all  self-will  for  the 
sake  of  obeying  and  of  trusting  the 
Divine  Will  more  and  more  perfectly 
as  time  goes  on.  If  we  are  content  to 
work  thoroughly  and  to  gain  slowly, 
not  to  be  pulled  down  by  mistakes  or 
discouragements,  but  to  learn  from  them, 
we  are  sure  to  be  grateful  for  the  new 
light  and  warmth  and  power  for  use  that 
will  come  to  us,  increasing  day  by  day. 


352 


p 


Chapter  XXIX 

Plain  Every-day  Common  Sense 

LAIN  common  sense !  When  we 
come  to  sift  everything  down 
which  will  enable  us  to  live 
wholesome,  steady,  every-day,  interest- 
ing lives,  plain  common  sense  seems  to 
be  the  first  and  the  simplest  need.  In 
the  working  out  of  any  problem,  whether 
it  be  in  science  or  in  art  or  in  plain  every- 
day living,  we  are  told  to  go  from  the 
circumference  to  the  center,  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown,  from  simplest 
facts  to  those  which  would  otherwise 
seem  complex.  And  whether  the  life 
we  are  living  is  quiet  and  commonplace, 
or  whether  it  is  full  of  change  and  adven- 
ture, to  be  of  the  greatest  and  most  per- 
manent   use,    a    life    must    have    as    its 

353 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

habitual  background  plain  every-day 
common  sense. 

When  we  stop  and  think  a  while,  the 
lack  of  this  important  quality  is  quite 
glaring,  and  every  one  who  has  his 
attention  called  to  it  and  recognizes  that 
lack  enough  to  be  interested  to  supply 
it  in  his  own  life,  is  doing  more  good 
toward  bringing  plain  common  sense 
into  the  world  at  large  than  we  can  well 
appreciate.  For  instance,  it  is  only  a 
fact  of  plain  common  sense  that  we 
should  keep  rested,  and  yet  how  many 
of  us  do.f^  How  many  readers  of  this 
article  will  smile  or  sneer,  or  be  irritated 
when  they  read  the  above,  and  say,  ''It 
is  all  very  well  to  talk  of  keeping  rested. 
How  is  it  possible  with  all  I  have  to  do  ? 
or  with  all  the  care  I  have.^  or  with  all 
I  have  to  worry  me.^^" 

Now  that  is  just  the  point  —  the 
answer   to    that    question,    "How   is   it 

354 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

possible?"  So  very  few  of  us  know  how 
to  do  it,  and  if  *'how  to  keep  rested 
though  busy"  were  regularly  taught  in 
all  schools  in  this  country,  so  far  from 
making  the  children  self-conscious  and 
over-careful  of  themselves,  it  would 
lay  up  in  their  brains  ideas  of  plain 
common  sense  which  would  be  stocked 
safely  there  for  use  when,  as  their  lives 
grew  more  maturely  busy,  they  would 
find  the  right  habits  formed,  enabling 
them  to  keep  busy  and  at  the  same  time 
to  keep  quiet  and  rested.  What  a 
wonderful  difference  it  would  eventually 
make  in  the  wholesomeness  of  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  this  entire  nation. 
And  that  difference  would  come  from 
giving  the  children  now  a  half  hour's 
instruction  in  the  plain  common  sense 
of  keeping  well  rested,  and  in  seeing  that 
such  instruction  was  entirely  and  only 
practical. 

355 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

It  has  often  seemed  to  me  that  the 
tendency  of  education  in  the  present  day 
is  more  toward  giving  information  than 
it  is  in  preparing  the  mind  to  receive  and 
use  interesting  and  useful  information  of 
all  kinds :  that  is,  in  helping  the  mind 
to  attract  what  it  needs;  to  absorb 
what  it  attracts,  and  digest  what  it 
absorbs  as  thoroughly  as  any  good 
healthy  stomach  ever  digested  the  food 
it  needed  to  supply  the  body  with 
strength.  The  root  of  such  cultivation, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  in  teaching  the 
practical  use  and  application  of  all  that 
is  studied.  To  be  sure,  there  is  much 
more  of  that  than  there  was  fifty  years 
ago,  but  you  have  only  to  put  to  the 
test  the  minds  of  young  graduates  to 
see  how  much  more  of  such  work  is 
needed,  and  how  much  more  intelligent 
the  training  of  the  young  mind  may  be, 
even  now. 

356 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

'  Take,  for  instance,  the  subject  of  ethics. 
How  many  boys  and  girls  go  home  and 
ar^  more  useful  in  their  famihes,  more 
thoughtful  and  considerate  for  all  about 
them,  for  their  study  of  ethics  in  school  ? 
And  yet  the  study  of  ethics  has  no 
other  use  than  this.  If  the  mind  ab- 
sorbed and  digested  the  true  principles  of 
ethics,  so  that  the  heart  felt  moved  to  use 
them,  it  might  — it  probably  would  — 
make  a  great  change  in  the  lives  of  the 
boys  and  girls  who  studied  it  —  a  change 
that  would  surprise  and  delight  their 
parents  and  friends. 

If  the  science  of  keeping  rested  were 
given  in  schools  in  the  way  that,  in 
most  cases,  the  science  of  ethics  seems 
to  be  given  now,  the  idea  of  rest  would 
lie  in  an  indigestible  lump  on  the  minds 
of  the  students,  and  instead  of  being 
absorbed,  digested  and  carried  out  in 
their  daily  lives,   would   be  evaporated 

357 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

little  by  little  into  the  air,  or  vomited 
off  the  mind  in  various  jokes  about  it, 
and  other  expressions  that  would  prove 
the  children  knew  nothing  of  what  they 
were  being  taught. 

But  again,  I  am  glad  to  repeat  —  if 
instruction,  practical  instruction,  were 
given  every  day  in  the  schools  on  how 
to  form  the  habit  of  keeping  rested,  it 
would  have  a  wonderful  effect  upon  the 
whole  country,  not  to  mention  where  in 
many  individual  cases  it  would  actually 
prevent  the  breaking  out  of  hereditary 
disease. 

Nature  always  tends  toward  health; 
so  strongly,  so  habitually  does  nature 
tend  toward  health  that  it  seems  at 
times  as  if  the  working  of  natural  laws 
pushed  some  people  into  health  in  spite 
of  chronic  antagonism  they  seem  to  have 
against  health  —  one  might  even  say  in 
spite  of  the  wilful  refusal  of  health. 

358 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

When  one's  body  is  kept  rested,  nature 
is  constantly  throwing  off  germs  of 
disease,  constantly  working,  and  work- 
ing most  actively,  to  protect  the  body 
from  anything  that  would  interfere  with 
its  perfect  health.  When  one's  body  is 
not  rested,  nature  works  just  as  hard, 
but  the  tired  body  —  through  its  various 
forms  of  tension  that  impede  the  cir- 
culation, prevent  the  healthy  absorp- 
tion of  food  and  oxygen,  and  clog  the 
way  so  that  impurities  cannot  be  carried 
off  —  interferes  with  nature's  work  and 
thus  makes  it  impossible  for  her  to  keep 
the  machine  well  oiled.  When  we  are 
tired,  the  very  fact  of  being  tired  makes 
us  more  tired,  unless  we  rest  properly. 

A  great  deal  —  it  seems  to  me  more 
than  one-half  —  of  the  fatigue  in  the 
world  comes  from  the  need  of  an  in- 
telligent understanding  of  how  to  keep 
rested.     The  more  that  lack  of  intelli- 

359 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

gence  is  allowed  to  grow,  the  worse  it 
is  going  to  be  for  the  health  of  the 
nation.  We  have  less  of  that  plain 
common  sense  than  our  grandfathers  and 
grandmothers.  They  had  less  than  their 
fathers  and  mothers.  We  need  more 
than  our  ancestors,  because  life  is  more 
complicated  now  than  it  was  then.  We 
can  get  more  if  we  will,  because  there  is 
more  real  understanding  of  the  science 
of  hygiene  than  our  fathers  and  mothers 
had  before  us.  Our  need  now  is  to  use 
"practically  the  information  which  a  few 
individuals  are  able  to  give  us,  and 
especially  to  teach  such  practical  use  to 
our  children. 

Let  us  find  out  how  we  would  actually 
go  to  work  to  keep  rested,  and  take  the 
information  of  plain  common  sense  and 
use  it. 

To  keep  rested  we  must  not  overwork 
our  body  inside  or  outside.     We  must 

360 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

keep  it  in  an  equilibrium  of  action  and 
rest. 

We  overwork  our  body  inside  when  we 
eat  the  wrong  food  and  when  we  eat  too 
much  or  not  enough  of  the  right  food, 
for  then  the  stomach  has  more  than  its 
share  of  work  to  do,  and  as  the  effort 
to  do  it  well  robs  the  brain  and  the  whole 
nervous  system,  so,  of  course,  the  rest  of 
the  body  has  not  its  rightful  supply  of  en- 
ergy and  the  natural  result  is  great  fatigue. 

We  overwork  our  body  inside  when  we 
do  not  give  it  its  due  amount  of  fresh 
air.  The  blood  needs  the  oxygen  to 
supply  itself  and  the  nerves  and  muscles 
with  power  to  do  their  work.  When  the 
oxygen  is  not  supplied  to  the  blood,  the 
machinery  of  the  body  has  to  work  with 
so  much  less  power  than  really  belongs 
to  it,  that  there  is  great  strain  in  the  effort 
to  do  its  work  properly,  and  the  effect 
is,  of  course,  fatigue. 

361 


NERVES  AND  V  COMMON  SENSE 

In  either  of  the  above  cases,  both  with 
an  overworked  stomach  and  an  over- 
worked heart  and  lungs,  the  complaint 
is  very  apt  to  be,  "Why  am  I  so  tired 
when  I  have  done  nothing  to  get  tired  ? " 
The  answer  is,  ''No,  you  have  done  noth- 
ing outside  with  your  muscles,  but  the 
heart  and  lungs  and  the  stomach  are 
delicate  and  exquisite  instruments.  You 
have  overworked  them  all,  and  such 
overwork  is  the  more  fatiguing  in  pro- 
portion to  what  is  done  than  any  other 
form,  except  overwork  of  the  brain." 
And  the  overtired  stomach  and  heart 
and  lungs  tire  the  brain,  of  course. 

Of  the  work  that  is  given  to  the  brain 
itself  to  overtire  it  we  must  speak  later. 
So  much  now  for  that  which  prevents 
the  body  from  keeping  rested  inside,  in 
the  finer  working  of  its  machinery. 

It  is  easy  to  find  out  what  and  how 
to   eat.     A   very   little   careful   thought 

362 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY-  COMMON  SENSE 

will  show  us  that.  It  is  only  the  plain 
common  sense  of  eating  we  need.  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  we  must  not  eat  on  a 
tired  stomach,  and  if  we  have  to  do  so, 
we  must  eat  much  less  than  we  ordinarily 
would,  and  eat  it  more  slowly.  So  much 
good  advice  is  already  given  about  what 
and  how  to  eat,  I  need  say  nothing  here, 
and  even  without  that  advice,  which  in 
itself  is  so  truly  valuable,  most  of  us 
could  have  plain  common  sense  about 
our  own  food  if  we  would  use  our  minds 
intelligently  about  it,  and  eat  only  what 
we  know  to  be  nourishing  to  us.  That 
can  be  done  without  fussing.  Fussing 
about  food  contracts  the  stomach,  and 
prevents  free  digestion  almost  as  much 
as  eating  indigestible  food. 

Then  again,  if  we  deny  ourselves  that 
which  we  want  and  know  is  bad  for  us, 
and  eat  only  that  which  we  know  to  be 
nourishing,  it  increases  the  delicacy  of 

363 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

our  relish.  We  do  not  lose  relish  by 
refusing  to  eat  too  much  candy.  We 
gain  it.  Human  pigs  lose  their  most 
delicate  relish  entirely,  and  they  lose 
much  —  very   much  more  —  than   that. 

Unfortunately  with  most  people,  there 
is  not  the  relish  for  fresh  air  that  there 
is  for  food.  Very  few  people  want  fresh 
air  selfishly;  the  selfish  tendency  of 
most  people  is  to  cut  it  off  for  fear  of 
taking  cold.  And  yet  the  difference  felt 
in  health,  in  keeping  rested,  in  ease  of 
mind,  is  as  great  between  no  fresh  air 
and  plenty  of  fresh  air  as  it  is  between 
the  wrong  kind  of  food  and  enough  (and 
not  too  much)  of  the  right  kind  of 
food. 

Why  does  not  the  comfort  of  the  body 
appeal  to  us  as  strongly  through  the 
supply  of  air  given  to  the  lungs  as 
through  that  of  food  given  to  the 
stomach?     The    right    supply    of    fresh 

364 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

air  has  such  wonderful  power  to  keep  us 
rested ! 

Practical  teaching  to  the  children  here 
would,  among  other  things,  give  them 
training  which  would  open  their  lungs 
and  enable  them  to  take  in  with  every 
breath  the  full  amount  of  oxygen  needed 
toward  keeping  them  rested.  There  are 
so  many  cells  in  the  lungs  of  most  people, 
made  to  receive  oxygen,  which  never 
receive  one  bit  of  the  food  they  are 
hungry  for. 

There  is  much  more,  of  course,  very 
much  more,  to  say  about  the  working  of 
the  machinery  of  the  inside  of  the  body 
and  about  the  plain  common  sense  needed 
to  keep  it  well  and  rested,  but  I  have  said 
enough  for  now  to  start  a  thoughtful 
mind  to  work. 

Now  for  keeping  the  body  well  rested 
from  the  outside.  It  is  all  so  well  arranged 
for  us  —  the  night  given  us  to  sleep  in, 

365 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

a  good  long  day  of  work  and  a  long  night 
of  rest ;  so  the  time  for  rest  and  the  time 
for  work  are  equalized  and  it  is  so  happily 
arranged  that  out  of  the  twenty-four 
hours  in  the  day,  when  we  are  well,  we 
need  only  eight  hours'  sleep.  So  well 
does  nature  work  and  so  truly  that  she 
can  make  up  for  us  in  eight  hours'  sleep 
what  fuel  we  lose  in  sixteen  hours  of 
activity. 

Only  one-third  of  the  time  do  we  need 
to  sleep,  and  we  have  the  other  two- 
thirds  for  work  and  play.  This  regular 
sleep  is  a  strong  force  in  our  aim  to  keep 
rested.  Therefore,  the  plain  common 
sense  of  that  is  to  find  out  how  to  go  to 
sleep  naturally,  how  to  get  all  the  rest 
out  of  sleep  that  nature  would  give  us, 
and  so  to  wake  refreshed  and  ready 
for  the  day. 

To  go  to  sleep  naturally  we  must  learn 
how  to  drop  all  the  tension  of  the  day 

366 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON   SENSE 

and  literally  drop  to  sleep  like  a  baby. 
Let  go  into  sleep  —  there  is  a  host  of  mean- 
ing in  that  expression.  When  we  do 
that,  nature  can  revive  and  refresh  and 
renew  us.  Renew  our  vitality,  bring  us 
so  much  more  brain  power  for  the  day, 
all  that  we  need  for  our  work  and  our 
play ;  or  almost  all  —  for  there  are  many 
little  rests  during  the  day,  little  openings 
for  rest  that  we  need  to  take,  and  that  we 
can  teach  ourselves  to  take  as  a  matter 
of  course.  We  can  sit  restfuUy  at  each 
one  of  our  three  meals.  Eat  restfully 
and  quietly,  and  so  make  each  meal 
not  only  a  means  of  getting  nourish- 
ment, but  of  getting  rest  as  well.  There 
is  all  the  difference  of  illness  and  health 
in  taking  a  meal  with  strain  and  a  sense 
of  rush  and  pressure  of  work,  and  in 
taking  it  as  if  to  eat  that  one  meal  were 
the  only  thing  we  had  to  do  in  the  day. 
Better  to  eat  a  little  nourishing  food  and 

367 


NERVES  AND   COMMON  SENSE 

eat  it  quietly  and  at  leisure  than  a 
large  meal  of  the  same  food  with  a  sense 
of  rush.  This  is  a  very  important  factor 
in  keeping  rested. 

Then  there  are  the  many  expected  and 
unexpected  times  in  the  day  when  we  can 
take  rest  and  so  keep  rested.  If  we  have 
to  wait  we  can  sit  quietly.  Whatever  we 
are  doing  we  can  make  use  of  the  be- 
tween times  to  rest.  Each  man  can 
find  his  own  ''between  times."  If  we 
make  real  use  of  them,  intelligent  use, 
they  not  only  help  us  to  keep  rested,  they 
help  us  to  do  our  work  better,  if  we  will 
but  watch  for  them  and  use  them. 

Now  the  body  is  only  a  servant  and  in 
all  I  have  written  above,  I  have  only 
written  of  the  servant.  How  can  a 
servant  keep  well  and  rested  if  the 
master  drives  him  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  is  brought  into  a  state,  not  where 
he  won't  go,  but  where  he  can't  go,  and 

368 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

must  therefore  drop  ?  It  is  the  intelli- 
gent master,  who  is  a  true  disciple  of 
plain  common  sense,  who  will  train  his 
servant,  the  body,  in  the  way  of  resting, 
eating  and  breathing,  in  order  to  fit  it 
for  the  maximum  of  work  at  the  mini- 
mum of  energy.  But  if  you  obey  every 
external  law  for  the  health  and  strength 
of  the  body,  and  obey  it  implicitly,  and  to 
the  letter,  with  all  possible  intelligence, 
you  cannot  keep  it  healthy  if  the  mind 
that  owns  the  body  is  pulling  it  and 
twisting  it,  and  twanging  on  its  delicate 
machinery  with  a  flood  of  resentment  and 
resistance;  and  the  spirit  behind  the 
mind  is  eager,  wretched,  and  unhappy, 
because  it  does  not  get  its  own  way,  or 
elated  with  an  inflamed  egoism  because 
it  is  getting  its  own  way. 

All  plain  common  sense  in  the  way  of 
health  for  the  body  falls  dead  unless  fol- 
lowed up  closely  with  plain  common  sense 

369 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

for  the  health  of  the  mind ;  and  then  again, 
although  when  there  is  ''a  healthy  mind  in 
a  healthy  body,"  the  health  appears  far 
more  permanent  than  when  a  mind  full 
of  personal  resistance  tries  to  keep  its 
body  healthy,  even  that  happy  combina- 
tion cannot  be  really  permanent  unless 
there  is  found  back  of  it  a  healthy  spirit. 

But  of  the  plain  common  sense  of  the 
spirit  there  is  more  to  be  said  at  another 
time. 

With  regard  to  the  mind,  let  us  look 
and  see  not  only  that  it  is  not  sensible 
to  allow  it  to  remain  full  of  resistance, 
but  is  it  not  positively  stupid  ? 

What  an  important  factor  it  should  be 
in  the  education  of  children  to  teach 
them  the  plain  common  sense  needed 
to  keep  the  mind  healthy  —  to  teach 
them  the  uselessness  of  a  mental  resist- 
ance, and  the  wholesomeness  of  a  clean 
mind. 

370 


PLAIN  EVERY-DAY  COMMON  SENSE 

If  a  child  worries  about  his  lessons,  he 
is  resisting  the  possibility  of  failing  in 
his  class;  let  him  learn  that  the  worry 
interferes  with  his  getting  his  lesson. 
Teach  him  how  to  drop  the  worry,  and 
he  will  find  not  only  that  he  gets  the 
lesson  in  less  time,  but  his  mind  is 
clearer  to  remember  it. 

By  following  the  same  laws,  children 
could  be  taught  that  a  feeling  of  rush  and 
hurry  only  impedes  their  progress.  The 
rushed  feeling  sometimes  comes  from  a 
nervous  unquiet  which  is  inherited,  and 
should  be  trained  out  of  the  child. 

But  alas !  alas !  how  can  a  mother  or 
a  father  train  a  child  to  live  common 
sensibly  without  useless  resistance  when 
neither  the  mother  nor  the  father  can 
do  that  same  themselves.  It  is  not  too 
late  for  any  mother  or  father  to  learn, 
and  if  each  will  have  the  humility  to 
confess  to  the  child  that  they  are  learning 

371 


NERVES  AND  COMMON  SENSE 

and  help  the  child  to  learn  with  them, 
no  child  would  or  could  take  advantage 
of  that  and  as  the  children  are  trained 
rightly,  what  a  start  they  can  give  their 
own  children  when  they  grow  up  —  and 
what  a  gain  there  might  be  from  one 
generation  to  another!  Will  it  ever 
come?     Surely  we  hope  so. 


S72 


Chapter  XXX 
A  Summing  Up 

GIVE  up  resentment,  give  up  un- 
healthy resistance. 
If  circumstances,  or  persons, 
arouse  either  resentment  or  resistance  in 
us,  let  us  ignore  the  circumstances  or 
persons  until  we  have  quieted  ourselves. 
Freedom  does  not  come  from  merely 
yielding  out  of  resentment  or  unhealthy 
resistance,  it  comes  also  from  the  strong 
and  steady  focus  on  such  yielding.  Con- 
centration and  relaxation  are  "  just  as 
necessary  one  to  another  to  give  stability 
to  the  nerves  of  a  man  —  as  the  centrifugal 
and  centripetal  forces  are  necessary  to 
give  stability  to  the  Earth. 

As    the    habit    of    healthy    concentra- 
tion and  relaxation  grows  within  us,  our 

373 


NERVES   AND    COMMON   SENSE 

perception  clears  so  that  we  see  what  is 
right  to  do,  and  are  given  the  power  to  do 
it.  As  our  freedom  from  bondage  to  our 
fellowmen  becomes  estabhshed,  our  re- 
lation to  our  fellowmen  grows  happier, 
more  penetrating  and  more  full  of  life, 
and  later  we  come  to  understand  that  at 
root  it  is  ourselves  —  our  own  resentment 
and  resistance  —  to  which  we  have  been 
in  bondage,  —  circumstances  or  other 
people  have  had  really  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  When  we  have  made  that  dis- 
covery, and  are  steadily  acting  upon  it, 
we  are  free  indeed,  and  with  this  new 
liberty  there  grows  a  clear  sense  and 
conviction  of  a  wise,  loving  Power  which, 
while  leaving  us  our  own  free  will,  is  al- 
ways tenderly  guiding  us. 

No  one  ever  really  believed  anything 
without  experiencing  it.  We  may  think  we 
believe  all  sorts  of  beautiful  truths,  but 
how  can  any  truth  be  really  ours  unless  we 

374 


A   SUMMING   UP 

have  proved  it  by  living  ?  We  do  not  fully 
believe  it  until  it  runs  in  our  blood  —  that 
is  —  we  must  see  a  truth  with  our  minds, 
love  it  with  our  hearts  and  live  it  over  and 
over  again  in  our  lives  before  it  is  ours. 

If  the  reader  will  think  over  this  little 
book  —  he  will  see  that  every  chapter  has 
healthy  yielding  at  the  root  of  it.  It  is  a 
constant  repetition  of  the  same  principle 
applied  to  the  commonplace  circumstances 
of  life,  and  if  the  reader  will  take  this 
principle  into  his  mind,  and  work  practi- 
cally to  live  it  in  his  life,  he  will  find  the 
love  for  it  growing  in  his  heart,  and  with 
it  a  living  conviction  that  when  truly 
applied,  it  always  works. 

Some  one  once  described  the  diiference 
between  good  breeding  and  bad  breeding 
as  that  between  a  man  who  works  as  a 
matter  of  course  to  conquer  his  limita- 
tions —  and  a  man  to  whom  his  limita- 
tions are  inevitable. 

375 


NERVES   AND    COMMON   SENSE 

There  is  spiritual  good  breeding  and 
natural  good  breeding.  The  first  comes 
from  the  achievement  of  personal  char- 
acter —  the  second  is  born  with  us  —  to 
use  or  misuse  as  we  prefer. 

It  is  a  happy  thing  to  realize  that  our 
freedom  from  bondage  to  circumstances, 
and  our  loving,  intelligent  freedom  from 
other  people,  is  the  true  spiritual  good 
breeding  which  gives  vitality  to  every 
action  of  our  lives,  and  brings  us  into 
more  real  and  closer  touch  with  our 
fellow-men.  Courtesy  is  alive  when  it 
has  geniune  love  of  all  human  nature 
at  the  root  of  it  —  it  is  dead  when  it  is 
merely  a  matter  of  good  form. 

In  so  far  as  I  know,  the  habit  of  such 
freedom  and  good  breeding  cannot  be 
steadily  sustained  without  an  absolute, 
conscious  dependence  upon  the  Lord 
God  Almighty. 


376 


COLUMBIA  UMVHRSITY  LIBRARIES 


This  book  is  due  on  the 
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indicated  below,  or  at  the 

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C28(i141)m100 


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RC351 

v^^ 

013 

1916 

Call 

1 

Nerves 

and 

common 

sense. 

^ \ . 

